many years to work matters to a safe and happy conclusion, but at
the present moment there seemed to be no clouds in the sky.

The new King had been as gracious as it was in his nature to be to
Sir Richard, and did not appear to regard him with any suspicion.
The knight breathed freely again after a long period of anxiety,
for the tenacious memory and uncertain temper of the late Queen had
kept him in a constant ferment.

It had been a kindly and courageous thing for Sir Richard to permit
his contumacious and inimical kinsman to retain the possession of
the old Gate House. Nicholas had no manner of right to it, though
he was fond of putting forward a pretended claim; and the close
proximity of a rank and bitter Papist of his own name and race was
anything but a pleasant thing. But the sense of family feeling, so
strongly implanted in the English race, had proved stronger than
prudential scruple, and Nicholas had not been ejected, his nephew
even striving at the first to establish some kind of friendly
relations with the old man, hoping perhaps to draw him out of his
morose ways, and lead him to conformity and obedience to the
existing law.

Nicholas had refused all overtures; but his lonely son and daughter
had been only too thankful for notice, and the whole family at the
Chase became keenly interested in them. It was plain from the first
that their father's bitterness and rigid rule had done anything but
endear his own views to his children. Petronella accepted the
creeds and dogmas instilled into her mind with a childlike faith,
and dreamed her own devotional dreams over her breviary and her
book of saints--the only two volumes she possessed. She was
content, in the same fashion that a little child is content, with
just so much as was given her. But Cuthbert's mind was of a
different stamp, and he had long been panting to break the bonds
that held both body and soul in thrall, and find out for himself
the meaning of those questions and controversies that were
convulsing the nation and the world.

Intercourse with his kinsfolk had given him his first real insight
into the burning questions of the hour, and his attendance from
time to time at the parish church had caused him fresh access of
wonder at what his father could object to in the doctrines there
set forth. They might not embody everything a popish priest would
bid him believe, but at least they appeared to the boy to contain
all the integral truths of