hat she
would still bear their name, and pass for their daughter, but that
would be only so long as it might suit her mother's convenience; and
instead of seeing her every day, and enjoying her full confidence (so
far as they knew), she would be out of reach, and given up to
influences, both moral and religious, which they deeply distrusted;
also to a fate looming in the future with all the dark uncertainty that
brooded over all connected with Tudor or Stewart royalty.

How much good Susan wept and prayed that night, only her pillow knew,
not even her husband; and there was no particular comfort when my Lady
Countess descended on her in the first interval of fine weather, full
of wrath at not having been consulted, and discharging it in all sorts
of predictions as to Cis's future. No honest and loyal husband would
have her, after being turned loose in such company; she would be
corrupted in morals and manners, and a disgrace to the Talbots; she
would be perverted in faith, become a Papist, and die in a nunnery
beyond sea; or she would be led into plots and have her head cut off;
or pressed to death by the peine forte et dure.

Susan had nothing to say to all this, but that her husband thought it
right, and then had a little vigorous advice on her own score against
tamely submitting to any man, a weakness which certainly could not be
laid to the charge of the termagant of Hardwicke.

Cicely herself was glad to go. She loved her mother with a romantic
enthusiastic affection, missed her engaging caresses, and felt her
Bridgefield home eminently dull, flat, and even severe, especially
since she had lost the excitement of Humfrey's presence, and likewise
her companion Diccon. So she made her preparations with a joyful
alacrity, which secretly pained her good foster-parents, and made Susan
almost ready to reproach her with ingratitude.

They lectured her, after the fashion of the time, on the need of never
forgetting her duty to her God in her affection to her mother, Susan
trusting that she would never let herself be led away to the Romish
faith, and Richard warning her strongly against untruth and falsehood,
though she must be exposed to cruel perplexities as to the right-- "But
if thou be true to man, thou wilt be true to God," he said. "If thou
be false to man, thou wilt soon be false to thy God likewise."

"We will pray for thee, child," said Susan. "Do thou pray earnestly
for thyself that thou mayest ever see