"Say rather," interrupted Master Rhys, "a merciful exchange of earthly bonds for heavenly. Methinks Death can cause no long severance between holy friends! And the boy--is he an only child?" "A brother and sister died in their infancy," replied Lady Rosamond, "and he had in consequence a somewhat lonely childhood. He became a scholar of Winchester, where he gained much distinction, and was destined by his father for his own college, Christchurch; but meeting with young Jeremy Taylor at our house some four years since, so violent a friendship sprang up between the youths that nothing would content our hero but the University of Cambridge and the close proximity of his friend, then entered upon his career at Caius. So with his father's permission he became, some two years since, being then eighteen years of age, a scholar of Christ's, where, I warrant you, he whiles away many a shining hour beneath the o'erhanging boughs of Master Milton's mulberry tree, evolving his wild dreams of an early Elysium wherein no fragrant juices of the grape shall find place. What with the poetic atmosphere he must needs inhale daily beneath those inspired branches, and the power of verse bequeathed him by his illustrious grandsire, joined to the musical gifts inherited from the fair Lady Enid, he will, I do assure him, pass ere long into some ethereal region far above this vulgar workaday world, where his golden visions may be dissipated by no rude shock and his castles in the air rear themselves aloft without fear of fall! Yet he has withal a true enjoyment of all that is good in this nether world, and can enter with a zest I love to see into its harmless joys and pleasures, and I do verily love to tease and plague him as to the severity he shows towards such as he deems harmful. Since the death of his father he has been wont to spend much of his vacation time (being somewhat cavilled at by the lordly Veres for his heterodoxy on the true Doctrine of Wines) in our company, a right welcome guest, I assure you! He is destined, I doubt not, to make some mark in the world, an he will not waste his precious moments in the putting forth of pamphlets abusing God's good creatures! But on this subject of strong drink he bestows so much thought, that I fear me he will mar his prospects by over-much study in this one direction. He confesses himself likewise to "have some special and secret mission in connection therewith ever before his view, and with none of my feminine beguilements can I as yet induce him to reveal it to me, nor explain, so as to satisfy my curious mind, his great interest in so newfangled a notion." "I would much like to see this youth," said Master Rhys. "Can he not be persuaded to leave his organ for awhile, and favour us with his company?" "Nay, he is 'court musician' for the nonce," answered Lady Rosamond, shaking her head; "and having bargained with me for a displacement of our accustomed musician, for