The Lady Lucy held in detestation the earl's private character. The king, she said, was a high-minded gentleman, an affectionate husband and father, his presence and life had done much to reform the court; the earl was a man of commanding ability, but his hands were not pure enough to defend so lofty a cause. Better men, she thought, if in themselves weaker, would yet form stronger stays for the throne of the anointed of God. If Lord Strafford were displaced, she thought, the best men of all parties would unite; would understand each other, would understand their king, and all might yet go well. My Father, though less sanguine, was not without hope, although on rather different grounds. While Lady Lucy believed that Lord Strafford's violence and evil life were a weakness to the cause she deemed in itself sacred, my Father thought that Lord Strafford's power of character and mind were a fatal strength to the cause he deemed in itself evil. The earl once gone, he believed the king would never find such another prop for his arbitrary measures, the lesser tyrant would fall like an arch with the key-stone out, and the king would yield, perforce, to the just demands of the nation. However, for the time, Lord Strafford's imprisonment formed a bond of sympathy between the two families, to Roger's and my great content. Much friendly rivalry there was in the Christmas adornment of the two transepts with wreaths of ivy and holly, ending in a free confession of defeat on our part, as our somewhat clumsy bunches of evergreen stood out in contrast with the graceful wreaths and festoons with which Lettice had made the memory of the Davenants green. For a moment she enjoyed her triumph, and then begging permission to make a little change in our arrangements, with that quick perception of hers, and those fairy fingers which never could touch anything without weaving something of their own grace into it, in an hour or two she had made the massive columns and heavy arches of our ancestral chapel light and graceful as the most decorated monument of the Davenants, with traceries of glossy leaves and berries. Lettice's birthday was on Twelfth Night. She was fifteen, nearly two years younger than I was, and three than Roger. There was great merry-making at the Hall that day. In the morning distributings of garments to all the maidens in the parish of Lettice's age, by her own hands. She had some kindly or merry word for every one, and throughout the day was the soul of all the festivities. There was such a fullness of life and enjoyment in her; such a power of going out of herself altogether into the pleasures or wants of others. She seemed to me the centre of all, just as the sun is, by sending her sunbeams everywhere. While every one else was full of the thought of her, she was full only of shining into every neglected corner and shy blossom, making every one feel glad and cared for, down to Gammer Grindle's idiot boy.