enjoyed with his friend Jeremy. Yet in spite of these strong differences of opinion--so strong indeed that the discussion of matters religious and political was tacitly avoided by the three friends in their intercourse with each other--they shared alike one common aim and lofty ideal, in their mutual strife after a life of such purity and holiness as was attained by few men of their time, and in which strife they found a union destined to outlive all outward disturbance and disagreement. Master Milton's poetic pen was at this time almost wholly laid by, while in his quiet school-house in Aldersgate Street he plunged hotly into all the controversies of the day; and to the entreaties of his two young friends, that he would indite more glorious verse rather than waste his energies on the pouring forth of pamphlets against bishops and others in high estate, he made no answer, save by promising, with a quiet smile, that for the sake of his friend Jeremy he would e'en for the present spare the great Archbishop Laud the scathing censure of his political pen. And ere we pass from these scenes we must not omit to make mention of Sir Tristram Ap Thomas, who, though in constant attendance upon bevies of fair ladies, must needs for ever haunt the steps of Lady Rosamond's beautiful companion like some dismal sprite, assuring her that his affection for her was undying, and that he did but play with other damsels awhile, to hide the breaking of his heart, which he would smite valiantly with his hand as he sank on one knee before her in tragic attitude of grief and misery, raising to her face eyes of such woful despair that Primrose could have wept for his sorrows, had she not been fain, but some moments later, to burst into laughter, as she again beheld him disporting with a gay companion in some far corner, with heart as sound as ever. Whereupon she one day asked her lover saucily whether all men's hearts were fashioned after so strange a manner, and whether he could likewise so easily forget his sorrow did she bid him depart from her. On which he made answer, that were it ever the will of God that she should bid him take up so grievous a burden, she should then see the answer to her query, and know the love eternal and unalterable of which some men's hearts were capable. Which words were destined to bring to her own heart a future comfort, the need of which she yet but little dreamed.