"Sir Launcelot Trevor came here a week since to see if anything can be done to strengthen the fortifications. My Father was in Bristol when it was stormed, and has followed the king ever since; two of my brothers are in Ireland, seeing what can be done there; two fled beyond the seas after the defeat of the gallant Marquis of Montrose last September at Philipshaugh, near Selkirk; and two lie on that fatal Rowton Heath, where on September the 23rd the king's last army, worth the name, was broken and lost. "We have made sacrifices enough to endear the royal cause to us. I suppose this old house will be the next. For Harry said it would never stand a siege. But, oh, if I could only be sure Sir Launcelot is mistaken in what he says about Roger giving Harry his death-blow, much of the rest would seem light. I have never yet told my Mother of this dread. Sometimes when I think how Roger looked and spoke that morning, I feel sure it cannot be true. But he always said it was so wrong to believe things because I wished them true. And now the more I long to believe this false, the less I seem able. "Only four years since that merry sixteenth birthday, when I was a child. And then that happy summer afterwards, when the world seemed to grow so beautiful and great, and it seemed as if we were to do such glorious things in it. "First the birthdays seem like triumphal columns, trophies of a conquered year. Then like mile-stones, marking rather sadly the way we have come. But now I think they look like grave-stones, so much is buried for ever beneath this terrible year that is gone. Not lives only, but love, and trust, and hope. "I said so to my Mother to-night, as I wished her good-night. It was selfish. For I ought to comfort her. But she comforted me. She said, 'The birthdays will look like mile-stones again, by-and-by, sweetheart. They will be marked on the other side, "so much nearer home," and perhaps at last like trophies again, marking the conquered years.' "On which I broke down altogether, and said,-- "'Oh, Mother, don't speak like that, don't say you look on them like that. Think of me at the beginning of the journey, so near the beginning.' "'I do, Lettice,' said she. 'I pray to live, for thy sake, every day.' "For my sake; only for my sake. For her own she longs to go. And that is saddest of all to me. "For, except on days like these, when I think and look back, I am not always so very wretched. It is very strange, after all that has happened. But I am sometimes--rather often--a little bit happy. There is so much that is cheerful and beautiful in the world, I cannot help enjoying it. And pleasant things might happen yet. "I did love Harry, dearly; nearly better than any one. I do. But to my Mother losing him seems just the one sorrow which puts her on the other side of all earthly joys and sorrows, with a great gulf between, so that she looks on them from afar off, like an angel.