"The Lord's honours are not often like King Ahasuerus's," said Aunt Dorothy, gravely; "the Crowns of those He delighted to honour have sometimes been of fire, and their royal apparel of sack-cloth. There is such a thing," she continued, her wheel whirling like a whirlwind, "as serving only one master, yet that not the right one, though taking His name. And we are near the brink of that precipice whenever we seek any reward from the Master beyond His 'Well done.' '_I_ am thy shield,'" she concluded, "'_I, the Lord Himself;_' not what He promises or what He gives, though it were to be the half of His kingdom." By this time my Father's attention had been aroused to the discussion, and rising from the table and approaching the spinners, he said,-- "What you say, sister Dorothy, reminds me of some words I heard lately in a letter of Mr. Cromwell's. 'Truly no creature hath more cause,' he wrote, 'to put himself forth in the cause of his God than I. I have had plentiful wages beforehand, and I am sure I shall never earn the least mite.'" "Yea, verily," said Aunt Dorothy, "Mr. Cromwell may waste too much thought on draining and dyking; but he is a godly gentleman, and he under stands the Covenant." Cousin Placidia, however, pursued her course, and continued a living rebuke to Roger and me if we indulged in too noisy merriment, and to any of the maids who were tempted into a gayer kirtle or ribbon than ordinary. On Sunday she was never known to smile, nor on any other day to laugh, except in a mild moderate manner, as a polite concession to any one who expected it in response to a facetious remark. Her conversation meantime became remarkably scriptural. She did not allow herself an indulgence which she did not justify by a text; if her dresses wore longer than usual, so as to spare her purse, she looked on it as a proof that she had been marvellously helped with wisdom in the choice. If she escaped the various accidents which not unfrequently brought me into disgrace, and my clothes to premature ruin, she regarded it as an interference of Providence, like to that which watched over the Israelites in the wilderness. Indeed, it seemed to Roger and me that Placidia's primary meaning of being "on the Lord's side" was, that in a general way the Almighty should do what she liked; and that in particular the weather should be arranged with considerate reference as to whether she had on her new taffetas or her old woolsey. Great therefore was our relief, although great also our astonishment, when Aunt Dorothy announced to us one day that Cousin Placidia was about to be married to Mr. Nicholls, the vicar of Netherby. "Are you not surprised?" I ventured to ask of my Father. "Cousin Placidia is such a Precisian, as they call it, and Mr. Nicholls thinks so much of Archbishop Laud."