For Roger and me it was the greatest blessing that our father was just and candid to the extent of seeing (often to his own great distress and perplexity) even more clearly the defects of his own party which he might correct, than of the other side, which he could not; and that Aunt Gretel was apt to see all opinions and characters melted into a haze of indiscriminate sunshine by the light of her own loving heart. Our indignation, therefore, during the period of our lives which followed on this May-day was almost entirely directed against Aunt Dorothy. My idol remained for some time precisely at the due idolatrous distance, enshrined in general behind a screen of sweet mystery, with occasional flashes of beatific vision; the intervals filled up with rumours of the music, and breaths of the incense of the inner sanctuary, enhanced by what I deemed the unjust murmurs of the profane outside. My father fulfilled his promise of taking me to the Hall. On our way to Lady Lucy's drawing-chamber I caught a glimpse through a half-open door into her private chapel, which left on my memory a haze and a fragrance of coloured light falling on the marble pavements through windows like rubies and sapphires, of golden chalices and candelabras, of aromatic perfumes, with a rise and fall of sweet chords of sacred music, all blended together into a kind of sacred spell, like the church bells on Sunday across the Mere. The Lady Lucy herself was embroidering a silken church vestment with gold and crimson; skeins of glossy silk of brilliant colours lay around her, which thenceforth invested the descriptions of the broidered work of the tabernacle for me with a new interest. She received my father with a courtly grace, and me with her own motherly sweetness. She made me sit on a tabouret at her feet, while she conversed with my father, and gave me a French ivory puzzle to unravel. But I could do nothing but drink in the soft modulations of her voice without heeding what she said, except that the discourse seemed embroidered with the names of the King and the Queen, and the Princes and Princesses, which seemed as fit for her lips as her rich dress was for her person. She seemed to speak with a gentle raillery, reminding him of old times, and asking why he deserted the court. But his words and tones were very grave. Then, as he spoke of leaving, she unlocked a little sandal-wood cabinet, and took out a locket containing a curl of fair hair, and she said softly, "This was Magdalene's!" and held it beside mine. And then, as she carefully laid it aside again, the conversation for a few moments rose to higher things, and a Name higher than those of kings and queens was in it. And she said reverently, "In whatever else we differ, that good part, I trust, may be mine and yours! as we know so well it was hers." And my father seemed moved, took leave, and said nothing more until we had passed through the outer gate, when in the avenue