In May the party from the Lamb dined with Mr Holland, at whose house they met Mr Rose, and Mr and Mrs Underhill. The last-named gentleman could talk of nothing but the expected marriage of the young King with a Princess of France. This Princess was the hapless Elizabeth, afterwards affianced to Don Carlos, and eventually married to his father, the wretched Philip the Second. At this time she was just five years old. "But," said Isoult, "she shall be a Papist, trow?" "She shall be a Papist of mighty few years old," said Mr Underhill, laughing; "and we will quickly make a Protestant of her. I hear she is a mighty pretty child, her hair dark and shining, her eyes wondrous bright, and her smile exceeding sweet." "Sweeter than Thekla Rose's?" asked Mrs Underhill, herself smiling. "Scantly, methinks," answered Mr Underhill. "How like to a man's fantasy of an angel doth that maid look!" Robin looked very unlike an angel, for he appeared extremely uncomfortable, but he said nothing. From the King's marriage they came to that of the Princess Mary; and Mr Underhill--who, being a Gentleman Pensioner, with friends at Court, was allowed to speak with authority--gave the name of her projected bridegroom as "the Lord Lewis of Portugal. Wherein," pursued he, "Father Rose and I may amend our differences, seeing that she should first be called to renounce the succession." Mr Rose smiled, and said, "A happy ending of a troublous matter, if it were so." But, as the reader well knows, the troublous matter was not doomed to have so happy an end. The next topic was the new Act to allow the marriage of priests. All the party being Gospellers, were, of course, unanimous upon this subject. But Mr Underhill, who was not in the family secrets, unfortunately took it into his head to clap Robin rather smartly on the back, and congratulate him that he might now be a priest without being necessarily a bachelor. Poor Robin looked unhappy again, but still wisely remained silent, not relishing the opening of the subject in Mr Rose's presence. But Mr Rose only smiled, and quietly suggested that it would be well for Mr Underhill to satisfy himself that he was not making his friends sorrier instead of merrier, by coming down upon them with such personal assaults. John, by way of corollary, intimated in an aside to Isoult, that the gentleman in question "had a sore heavy hand when he was in right earnest."