'How long wilt thou be?' 'Until this marriage is over.' 'We shall hope to see thee then?' 'Thou mayest then hope.' And Wolsey departed for the church. Whilst he bent at the altar of St. Lawrence Church, glad to escape from anything like cheerfulness, he was steeling his heart for a trial to which the pages of romance could scarcely afford a parallel. Never once did he reproach himself for the cruelty of his behaviour towards those who really loved him, and had given him the greatest possible proofs of attachment. Never once did he reflect that his then state of deportment towards Ellen was barbarous or unjust; his whole soul was enveloped in the cloak of his own selfishness. His heart was full of gall and bitterness, grief and agony. And as he knelt before that altar to which he had devoted himself soul and body, did he pray for that high, that holy, inward peace, which the man who sacrifices every selfish feeling for the good of another would so earnestly desire? His heart could have burst at the very position he had then placed himself in, but for that indomitable pride which prayed for future aggrandizement, that the poor scholar of Ipswich might rival, or rather out-rival, the Lord De Freston and his friends. His vow was but an excuse for the feeding of his own solitary disappointment, but for the opportunity of brooding over the melancholy superstition to which his nature and his enlightened mind were adverse, but to which his seemingly injured affections had fled for solace. Whilst Wolsey was thus mournfully fasting and praying, and the gay world was shut out from the gloom of his devotion, parties of maidens formed in rank, a long and pleasing file, went with their baskets of flowers from Daundy's mansion gate towards St. Peter's Ford, by which the bride was expected to enter the town, and as they went, their leaders lifted up their voices and sung one stanza, at the conclusion of the last two lines of which the whole company joined: Come all ye merry lasses! Come bring your flowers gay; Come all in smiling masses, And strew the bridal way. Leave sorrow far behind you, And be not you forlorn, For Love alone should bind you To greet the bridal morn. CHORUS. Then haste! oh, haste, this happy hour! To meet the Maid of Freston Tower. It was a lovely morning, indeed; and Ellen, the Maid of Freston Tower, with her dear and anxious father, and her whole train of fair damsels and rustic maidens, and tenants' daughters and servants, were seen descending Freston Hill, from the park side to the strand. It was a long and sweeping _cortége_; the bridesmaids and the bride attired in travelling costume, attended by noble gentlemen, the friends of the various parties, swept along that happy strand amidst the blessings and praises of those poor people, who left their morning toil by permission of their masters.