eye showed how gladly he would accept Lady Peveril's proposal, he could
not help stating the obvious inconveniences attendant upon her scheme,
though it was in the tone of one who would gladly hear them overruled.
"Madam," he said, "your kindness makes me the happiest and most thankful
of men; but can it be consistent with your own convenience? Sir Geoffrey
has his opinions on many points, which have differed, and probably do
still differ, from mine. He is high-born, and I of middling parentage
only. He uses the Church Service, and I the Catechism of the Assembly of
Divines at Westminster----"

"I hope you will find prescribed in neither of them," said the Lady
Peveril, "that I may not be a mother to your motherless child. I trust,
Master Bridgenorth, the joyful Restoration of his Majesty, a work
wrought by the direct hand of Providence, may be the means of closing
and healing all civil and religious dissensions among us, and that,
instead of showing the superior purity of our faith, by persecuting
those who think otherwise from ourselves on doctrinal points, we shall
endeavour to show its real Christian tendency, by emulating each other
in actions of good-will towards man, as the best way of showing our love
to God."

"Your ladyship speaks what your own kind heart dictates," answered
Bridgenorth, who had his own share of the narrow-mindedness of the time;
"and sure am I, that if all who call themselves loyalists and Cavaliers,
thought like you--and like my friend Sir Geoffrey"--(this he added after
a moment's pause, being perhaps rather complimentary than sincere)--"we,
who thought it our duty in time past to take arms for freedom of
conscience, and against arbitrary power, might now sit down in peace
and contentment. But I wot not how it may fall. You have sharp and hot
spirits amongst you; I will not say our power was always moderately
used, and revenge is sweet to the race of fallen Adam."

"Come, Master Bridgenorth," said the Lady Peveril gaily, "those evil
omenings do but point out conclusions, which, unless they were
so anticipated, are most unlikely to come to pass. You know what
Shakespeare says--

'To fly the boar before the boar pursues,
Were to incense the boar to follow us,
And make pursuit when he did mean no chase.'

"But I crave your pardon--it is so long since we have met, that I forgot
you love no play-books."

"With reverence to your ladyship," said Bridgenorth, "I were much to
blame did