“It is well that you should be prepared to let her keep her religion; for I doubt she has a stubborn affection for the creed she learnt in her childhood. Indeed, it was but the other day she talked of the cloister; and I fear she has all the disposition to that religious prison in which her great aunt lived contentedly for the space of a long lifetime. But it is for you, Denzil, to cure her of that fancy, and to spare me the pain of seeing my best-beloved child under the black veil.” “Indeed, sir, if a love as earnest as man ever experienced—” “Yes, Denzil, I know you love her; and I love you almost as if you were my very son. In the years that went by after Hyacinth was born, before the beginning of trouble, I used to long for a son, and I am afraid I did sometimes distress my dear wife by dwelling too persistently upon disappointed hopes. And then came chaos—England in arms, a rebellious people, a King put upon his defence—and I had leisure to think of none but my royal master. And in the thick of the strife my poor lamb was born to me—the bringer of my life’s great sorrow—and there was no more thought of sons. So, you see, friend, the place in my heart and home has waited empty for you. Win but yonder shy dove to consent, and we shall be of one family and of one mind, and I as happy as any broken-down campaigner in England can be—content to creep to the grave in obscurity, forgotten by the Prince whose father it is my dear memory to have served.” “You loved your King, sir, I take it, with a personal affection.” “Ah, Denzil, we all loved him. Even the common people—led as they were by hectoring preachers of sedition, of no more truth or honesty than the mountebanks that ply their knavish trade round Henry’s statue on the Pont Neuf—even they, the very rabble, had their hours of loyalty. I rode with his Majesty from Royston to Hatfield, in ’47, when the people filled the midsummer air with his name, from hearts melting with love and pity. They strewed the ways with boughs, and strewed the boughs with roses. So great honour has been seldom shown to a royal captive.” “I take it that the lower class are no politicians, and loved their King for his private virtues.”