"She sent me her love, Roger, and was that all?" "Her dear love, I think it was," said he dryly, as if the adjective made little difference in the value of the substantive. "And she said no more, Roger? Not one message?" "I only saw her for ten minutes, Olive," said he, a little impatiently, "and most of the time she was talking to a little French poodle, a little wretch with wool like a sheep and eyes like glass-beads." "You are hard on the poor child, Roger," said Aunt Dorothy; "consider her bringing up. I warrant she never spun a web, or learned a chapter in Proverbs through in her life. What can you expect from a mother who is a friend of the Popish queen, and, I am only too sure, wears false hair and paint?" "Aunt Dorothy," said he, firing up, "the Lady Lucy is as near a ministering angel as any creature I ever wish to see. And if it were not so, it's not for me, who have lived on her bread and on her kind looks for months, to hear a word against her." And Roger arose, and strode out of the hall and across the court, whistling for Lion; leaving Aunt Dorothy in perplexity as to whether he were more aggrieved with her for defending Lettice or for assailing Lady Lucy, and me in equal perplexity as to how I could ever venture to introduce Lettice's name again, longing as I did to hear more of her. "You never saw Lettice after she gave you that message?" I ventured at last to say one day when we were walking alone together. "How could I, Olive?" said he, "I went away instantly; except indeed," he added, "when I happened to look back, as I was leaving the court, I saw her standing at the window with that poodle in her arms. But I did not look again, for at the same moment Sir Launcelot Trevor came out of another door, looking as if he were, as no doubt he is, quite at home in the place with them all." "O Roger," I said, "some of us ought to write to Lady Lucy at once to say how wicked he is!" "What is the use, Olive?" said he, sadly. "It is not from us, rebels and traitors, she will believe evil of a good Cavalier. Least of all from me or mine about Sir Launcelot!" he added, in a lower voice. "But he may be deceiving them all," I said, passionately. "It is a sin to let him. Can nothing be done? Have you never thought of it?" "You had better ask me could I think of nothing else, Olive?" said he. "For I had to ask myself that many times as I paced up and down in prison, and knew about it all. And the more I thought, the more helpless I saw we were about it." "And what did you decide on at last?" I asked.