“I said as much to Hilary but now,” said the Bishop. “The maid vows she will not love a rebel. You had better see her yourself, doctor. So much do I value your son’s high character that I told her, spite of his views, I would gladly wed her to him. But Hilary is not easily led, nor will I attempt to coerce her. There she goes, walking towards the moat; do you, if you will, sir, follow her and plead your son’s cause.” The doctor willingly obeyed, and the Bishop, with a sigh, took up an old fourteenth-century manuscript entitled “Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love,” and tried to forget the sorrows and distracting cares of his times by reading words written hundreds of years before by Juliana, an anchorite of Norwich:--“And He will that our hearts be mightily raised above the deepness of the earth, and all vain sorrows, and enjoy in Him. This was a delectable sight, and a restful showing that is without end; and the beholding of this whiles we are here it is full pleasant to God and full great speed to us. And the soul that thus beholdeth, it maketh him like to Him that is beholden, and oned it in rest and in peace by His grace.” Meanwhile, Dr. Harford followed the graceful figure in the soft grey gown crossing the trim lawns which stretched down to the moat. In those days of hand-loom weaving, dresses were costly and lasted long. Hilary still wore the one she had been wearing on the day of Gabriel’s return from Oxford when he had been “Shot through the ear with a love-song; the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt-shaft.” But the morning was very cold, and she had put on a little short cape and hood of grey, lined with rose pink, in which she looked so ravishingly beautiful that the doctor felt a fresh pang of compassion for Gabriel’s loss. Her face clouded when on turning round she saw him approaching. He had always had a great influence over her, and, being in a perverse mood, she set herself to resist any appeal he might make, and tried naughtily to criticise his grave, strong face. The sudden brightness of his smile, however, which was so like Gabriel’s, somewhat disconcerted her, and her greeting was less cold than she had intended. “The Bishop told me to seek you here, Hilary,” he said, gently. “I am come in a two-fold capacity--as Gabriel’s father and as your father’s friend. Have you forgotten how greatly he wished a union betwixt you two?” “The war has changed all that,” said Hilary. “He would not approve now, sir.” “I assure you that he foresaw troubled times,” said Dr. Harford. “And knowing that in many points your grandfather did not hold with him, he begged me to do what I could to help you. ’Tis the memory of his words that brings me here today.” “Many desired reforms then who would not side now with the Parliament,” said Hilary. “Doubtless he would have followed my Lord Falkland’s example.”