"Dear children, ill would it become me to pry into the secrets of my honoured lady, the Lady Mallerden; yet may there arise occasions wherein it is needful for one in my situation (parent to the one of you, and _in loco parentis_ to the other), to make perquisition into matters of weight and importance to your well-being, even at the risk of appearing inquisitive into other peoples' affairs. Answer me, therefore, Alice, my dear child, has the Lady Mallerden instructed you in any portion of her family story?" "She has in some degree, sir," said Alice Snowton, "but not deeply." "You know of her disagreement on certain weighty points with her son, the Lord Viscount, and how that he is a wicked man, seeking to break into the pasture of the Lord, and tear down the hedges and destroy the boundaries thereof; and that in this view he is minded to get his daughter into his power, to use her as an instrument towards his temporal elevation?" "Something of all this we have heard, but not much," said Alice Snowton. "And furthermore, I must tell you that overtures were made to me to aid and assist in the resistance to be offered to this man of sin, and I did, for deep and wholesome reasons, refuse my assent thereto, and in this refusal I meant you, my children, to be included; therefore, whatever propositions may be made to you, to hear, or know, or receive, or in any manner aid, in the concealment of the Lord Viscount's daughter--which is at present in charge of an honourable lady in the north--I charge you, refuse them; they may bring ruin on an unambitious and humble household, and in no case can do good. We must fear God ever, and honour the king while he is intrusted with the sword of power; and family arrangements we must leave to the strong hands and able head of the great Lady Mallerden herself. In this caution I know I fulfil the intentions of my honoured friend, your esteemed uncle, Mr William Snowton, which is concerned with too many noble families to desire to get into enmity with any--and therefore be grateful for all the kindness you experience from my honoured lady; but if perchance she brings her grandchild to the Court, and wishes to make you of her intimates, inform me thereof; and greatly as it would be to be regretted, I would break off the custom of your visits to the noble house, for even that honour may be too dearly purchased by the enmity of powerful and unscrupulous men--if with sceptres in their hands, so much the more to be held in awe." And I ended with Æsopus his fable of the frogs and bulls. This discourse (whereof I had prepared the heads in the course of the morning) I delivered with the full force of my elocution, and afterwards I dismissed them, leaving to my excellent wife the duty of enlarging on the same topic, and also of giving such advice to Alice, which was now a full-grown young woman, and very fair to look on, in respect of the young cavaliers she