Scarcely a day passed on which we and the Davenants did not meet, especially Roger, and Lettice, and I; for Roger had taken his degree, and having overworked at it, was constrained to be idle for a while; and the boy Davenants were most of the time in London. At church, at the Hall, at the Manor, riding, coursing, hay-making, nutting, boating on the Mere; on rainy days, hunting out wonderful old illuminated manuscripts in Sir Walter's library, or by the organ in my Father's, singing glees and madrigals; making essays at Italian poetry, generally resulting in translations, metrical or otherwise, by Roger, for Lettice's benefit. Lettice reigning in all things, by a thousand indisputable royal rights; as pupil; as sovereign lady; as the youngest; as the most adventurous; as the most timid; by right of her need of care, and her clinging to protection; by right of minority, she being one, and we two; by right of her true constancy and her little seeming ficklenesses; by right of her brilliant, ever-changing beauty, and all her nameless, sweet, tyrannical, winning, willful ways; by right of all her generous self-forgetfulness, and delight to give pleasure; and firstly and lastly, by right of the subtle power which, through all these charms, stole into Roger's heart, and took possession of it, unchallenged and unresisted, then and for ever. We spoke little of politics. Lettice never had any, except loyalty to the king; and at this time her loyalty was sorely tried by reason of her perplexity and distress at what seemed to her the ungenerous desertion of Strafford in his need.