'Mary, Mary!' Lucy exclaimed, as she hid her face, weeping, on her sister's pillow. 'Oh, Mary! I will try to comfort you. I will not think only of myself--I will think of you and all you suffer. Mary, I am not really so heartless and vain, I will be good and comfort you, Mary.' Mary Gifford stroked Lucy's brown head, and murmured,-- 'Dear child! dear child! we will help each other now as we have never done before.' From that moment, from that day of her return to Ford Manor, Lucy Forrester seemed to have left her careless, pleasure-loving, pleasure-seeking girlhood behind. She had crossed the meeting place of the brook and river of womanhood and childhood. Some cross it all unawares--others with reluctant, lingering feet; some, like Lucy Forrester, brought face to face with the great realities of life and of suffering love, suddenly find themselves on the other side to return no more. BOOK II Since nature's works be good, and death doth serve As nature's work, why should we fear to die? Since fear is vain but when it may preserve, Why should we fear that which we cannot fly? Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears, Disarming human minds of native might; While each conceit an ugly figure bears Which were we ill, well viewed in reason's light. Our owly eyes, which dimmed with passions be, And scarce discern the dawn of coming day, Let them be cleared, and now begin to see Our life is but a step in dusty way, Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind; Since, feeling this, great loss we cannot find.--_Arcadia_, p. 457. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. CHAPTER X AT WILTON 'The silk well could they twist and twine, And make the fair march pine, And with the needle work; And they could help the priest to say His matins on a holy day, And sing a psalm at kirk.' _November 1585._ _Old Rhyme._ The chastened sunshine of an All Saints' summer was lying upon the fair lawns and terrace walks of Wilton House, near Salisbury, in the year 1585. It was November, but so soft and balmy was the air that even the birds were apparently ready to believe that winter was passed over and spring had come. The thrushes and blackbirds were answering each other from the trees, and the air was filled with their melody and with the scent of the late flowers in the pleasance, lying close under the cloisters, facing the beautiful undulating grounds of Lord Pembroke's mansion near Salisbury. The graceful figure of a lady was coming down the grassy slope towards the house; a boy of five or six years old, with a miniature bow and arrow in his hand, at her side. 'I would like another shot at this old beech tree, mother,' the child said. 'I do not care to come in to my tasks yet.' 'Will must be an obedient boy, or what will Uncle Philip say, if he comes to-day and finds him in disgrace with his tutor?' 'Uncle Philip isn't here,' the child said.