modern conception of the Puritan lady, as is testified by the splendid yellow silk petticoat which has been handed down from generation to generation in the family of her eldest daughter. Nevertheless it was not Bridget's vanity which was most on her father's mind. Five years later, in writing to his wife from Edinburgh, he begs her to 'mind poor Betty,' _i.e._ Elizabeth, Lady Claypole, 'of the Lord's great mercy,' and to urge her to 'take heed of a departing heart and of being cozened with worldly vanities and worldly company, which I doubt she is too subject to'. The liveliness which caused such searchings of heart was doubtless the tie which bound more firmly Oliver's love to her. One day we hear of her demurely assuring Whitelocke that it was fear of his great influence which had caused her father to send him out of the way to Sweden when he was about to assume the Protectorate. At another time we are told of her driving with her cousin Ingoldsby and two of her sisters, all the three ladies dressed in green, whilst the courtier-like crowd watch their movements and bow as they pass. Then we hear of the scornful language in which, with the pride of a lady by birth as well as by her father's advancement, she accounted for the absence of the wives of some of the Major-Generals from an entertainment at which she took part: "I warrant you they are washing their dishes at home as they used to do". Yet withal she had an open ear for trouble, and a ready tongue to plead not in vain the cause of the innocent with her father. By the summer of 1657 her health had been failing, and at one time her life had been despaired of. Oliver's own health was far from being such as to promise length of days. Though he had had no serious illness since the time when his life was in danger in Scotland after the toils and anxiety of the Dunbar campaign, short spells of ill-health are frequently mentioned, and the Venetian Ambassador, presented to him in the autumn of 1655, noticed the shaking hand with which he held his hat in welcoming him, a symptom of weakness which left its mark on his hand-writing during the later period of his life. In the summer of 1657 he was detained at Hampton Court by illness, apparently of the character of malarial fever, for more than a week. Yet his spirit was as high, his resolution as strong as ever. At no time had the state of public affairs made larger demands upon his mental powers than in the last fourteen months of his life. It is true that the adoption of the new Parliamentary constitution had appeared for a moment to have solved the problem of domestic government, but his sagacity would have been far less than it was if he had imagined that all his difficulties were at an end.