So, slowly as the year passed on, some of us began dimly to feel that a kingly being had arisen among us, such a king as David was before he was crowned, when he ruled in the hearts of the thousands of Israel by right of the slain giant and the secret anointing of the seer; a mighty man, who felt nothing impossible which he believed right, with whom, if a thing was "necessary," it was "to be done." CHAPTER X. LETTICE DAVENANT'S DIARY. Oxford, _January_ 30_th_, 1644.--Another Christmas, and another birthday, shut up within these monkish old stone walls. To my mother the chapel, with the painted windows, and the organ, and the daily services, makes up for much that we lose. But as to me, when I hear the same sounds, and see the same sights, from day to day, I scarcely seem to hear or see them at all. They do not wake my soul up. The sacred music of the woods and fields seems to do me more good, at least on week-days. For it is sacred, and it is never the same. And the choristers there, while they are singing their psalms, are busy all the time building their nests, and finding food for their nestlings, which make their songs all the more tender and sacred to me. "Not a word from them at Netherby. And not a step nearer to the end. "Yet it is wrong to complain. It is something to have my Father and my seven brothers still untouched, after being exposed during all this time to the risks of the war. I dread to think what a gulf would yawn between me and Olive, and all of them, if once one very dear to either of us fell in the strife. "I have nothing to complain of, but that things do not change; and with what a passion of regret I should long for one of these unchanging days, if one of the terrible changes that might come, came.