"I never knew one for whom it was not, Madam, except the few who were so gracious that the Lord's way was their way." "Well, I'd lief be like that," said Cicely. "The King couldn't be no better off than so." "So would I," Celia began; "but I am afraid that if I say the truth, it will be to add 'in everything but one.'" "Now, my dear young lady," said Patient, turning to her, "don't you go to grieve in this way for Mr. Philip, as you have been doing ever since. I had no thought till then how he had twined himself round either your heart or mine. Do you think, my bairn, that the Lord, who laid down His life for him, loved him so much less than we?" "O Patient! if it were only my loss!" "Whose then, Madam?" "I mean," said Celia, explanatorily, "if I could be sure that it was his gain." Patient did not reply for a moment. "I ask your pardon, Madam," she said at length; "I did not know the direction in which your fears were travelling. The less, perhaps, that I had none to join them." "I am surprised to hear you, Patient!" said Celia. "Only the last time that we saw him before he bade us adieu, you seemed to feel so doubtful about him." "That was not the last time that I saw him, Madam. The next morn, ere he set out, I heard him conversing with Mr. Colville. They were on the stairs, and I was disposing of your linen above. Now I knew that all his life long the one thing which Mr. Philip could not bear was scorn. It was the thing whereof I was doubtful if he would not stand ill, 'and in time of temptation fall away.'[3] And that morn I heard Mr. Colville speaking to him in a way which, three months earlier, would have sent his blood up beyond anything I could name;--gibing, and mocking, and flouting, taunting him with listening to a parcel of old women's stories, and not being man enough to disbelieve, and the like--deriding him, yea, making him a very laughing-stock. And Mr. Philip stood his ground; John Knox himself could have been no firmer. He listened without a word till Mr. Colville had ended; and then he said, as quietly and gently as you could yourself, Madam,--'Farewell, Colville,' saith he; 'we have been friends, but all is over now betwixt you and me. I will be the friend of no man who is the enemy of Christ. He is more to me than you are--yes, more than all the world!' Madam, do you think I could hear that, and dare to dispute the salvation of a man who could set Christ above all the world? Now, you understand why I had no fear for Mr. Philip." "He never said so much as that to me," replied Celia, with her eyes moist and glistening. "He would have done so presently, Madam." "But, Patient, it was so short a time after he had spoken so differently!"