Mr Underhill brought bad news. The King had fallen ill of small-pox, and Parliament was likely to be prorogued, since he could no longer be present at the debates. The idea that the royal presence might overawe the members, and the consequent absence of the Sovereign from the House excepting for state ceremonies, are no older than the Restoration. The Plantagenet and Tudor Kings sat in their Parliaments as a matter of course. After dinner, Mr Holland, who was fond of children, set Kate on his knee, and won her heart by permitting her to chatter as freely as she pleased. Robin and Thekla crept into a quiet corner by themselves; Mrs Underhill made Esther her especial companion; and the rest sat round the fire. "What think you," said Dr Thorpe to Mr Underhill, "should now hap, if (which God of His mercy defend!) this sickness of the King were to prove mortal?" "How mean you?" Mr Underhill answered, "that the King should or should not provide his successor?" "Why," replied Dr Thorpe, "will he shut out his sisters?" "There are that would right gladly have him to do so." "Whom aim you at there?" "My Lord of Northumberland and other," said he. Dr Thorpe exploded, as was usual with him, at Northumberland's name. "What, the Duke of Blunderhead?" cried he. "Ay, I reckon he would like well to be John the Second. Metrusteth the day that setteth the fair crown of England on that worthless head of his, shall see me safe in Heaven, or it should go hard with me but I would pluck it thence!" "I never can make out," answered Mr Underhill, laughing, "how you can be a Lutheran, and yet such an enemy to my Lord of Northumberland, that is commonly counted head of the Lutheran party, at the least in the sense of public matters." "Nay, my word on't!" exclaimed he, "but if I thought the Devil, by that his proxy, to be head of the Lutheran party, in any sense or signification whatsoever, I would turn Gospeller to-morrow!" Mr Underhill roared with laughter. John said, aside to Mr Rose,--"He is not far from it now." "Come, you are over hard on Jack Dudley," said Mr Underhill. "He is an old friend of mine." "Then I wish you joy of your friends," replied Dr Thorpe, in a disgusted tone: adding after a minute, "I yet look for your answer to my question." "I am no prophet," answered he, "neither a prophet's son; but it needeth not much power of prophecy to see that a civil war, or something very like it, should follow." "In either case?" suggested Avery. "In the case of the King making no appointment," he said, "very likely: in the case of his so doing, almost certain." "Eh, my masters!" continued Dr Thorpe very sadly, "when I was born, seventy-one years gone, the Wars of the Roses were scantly over. I have heard my father tell what they were. Trust me, rather than go through such a time again, I would be on my knees to God to spare it unto us,-- ay, night and day."