Lucy quickly recovered her spirits; her heart was too full of delighted anticipation to have room for any prolonged fear about her sister, though her pale, terror-struck face, seen in the twilight, and her agonised appeal to her to swear what she asked, made her say, as she lay down on her low truckle bed in the little attic chamber next her sister's,-- 'Sure Mary must know something of that man. Perhaps he was a boon companion of her wicked husband. Ah, me! it would be a different world if all men were brave and good and noble like--' Before the name had taken shape on her lips, Lucy was asleep, and in her dreams there were no dark strangers with cruel black eyes and sinister smiles, but goodly knights, in glistening armour, riding out against their adversaries, and goodlier and nobler than the rest, before whose lance all others fell, while the air rang with the shouts of victory, was Mr Philip Sidney. * * * * * Sunday morning dawned fair and bright. The bells of Penshurst church were chiming for matins, when Mary Gifford, leading her boy by the hand, stood with Lucy under the elm tree by the timbered houses by the lych gate, returning the kindly greetings of many neighbours and acquaintances. Overhead the great boughs of the elm tree were quivering in the soft breeze. The buds, scarcely yet unfolded into leaf, were veiled with tender green, while a sheaf of twigs on the trunk were clothed in emerald, in advance of the elder branches, and making the sombre bole alive with beauty, as the sunbeams sought them out, and cast their tiny, flickering shadows on the ground. The village people always waited in the churchyard, or by the lych gate till the household from the castle came through the door leading from the Park to the church, and this morning their appearance was looked forward to with more than usual interest. Not only was Lady Mary expected, but the Countess of Pembroke and her ladies, with Mr Sidney, and his young brothers, Robert and Thomas, were known to be of the party. [Illustration: THE LYCH GATE, PENSHURST.] Sir Henry Sidney was seldom able to leave Ludlow for a peaceful sojourn in his beautiful home, and Lady Mary had sometimes to make the journey from Wales without him, to see that all things in the house were well ordered, and to do her best to make the scanty income stretch out to meet the necessary claims upon it. When two of the gentlemen in attendance came to the gate to hold it open for the ladies of the party to pass, the throng assembled in the churchyard moved up near the porch, and, as Lady Mary came in sight, curtseys from the women and reverences from the men testified to the esteem in which she was held. Lady Pembroke came next, smiling and gracious. On her sweet face were no lines of the care which marked her mother's, and she looked what she was, a happy wife and mother.