It irks me somewhat to intertwine these rough dark threads with the story of those so dear to me, but the whole would drop into unmeaningness without them. Placidia and Mr. Nicholls made many a calumny of the enemy's comprehensible to me. For in later days it became the fashion to assert that characters of that stamp formed the staple of our Commonwealth men and women. Characters of this stamp win Naseby and Worcester! save the persecuted Vaudois! make England the reverence of the world! conceive the "Pilgrim's Progress," the "Areopagitica," and the "Living Temple!" sacrifice two thousand livings for conscience sake! No! Pharisees, doubtless, there were among us, as, alas, doubtless there is the root of Pharisaism within us. But they were of the make of Saul the disciple of Gamaliel, not of those who tithed the "mint, anise, and cummin." At first it seemed to me that Placidia's "Gospel" was more likely to be fulfilled in Roger's case than his own forebodings. Good seemed to come out of that hasty act of his rather than evil. The feeling he, usually so self-repressing, had shown about Sir Launcelot, revealed him in a new light to Lady Lucy. "I thought him rather stony, I must confess," she said; "but now I see it was only a little of your Puritan ice, if I may say so without offence; and that there is an ocean of feeling below. My dear, now all has ended well, he really must not take it so much to heart. He has grown too grave. We cannot have precisely the same standard for young men, with all their temptations and strong passions, as for sweet innocent girls sheltered tenderly in homes, with our softer natures. I should always wish to be severe to myself. But young men; ah, my child, the king is a good man, but if you had seen a little even of our Court, you would think Roger an angel." Compared with Sir Launcelot, I most sincerely believed he was. But this double standard was unknown in our Puritan home. One law of righteousness, and purity, and goodness we knew, and only one, for man and woman. And in this I learned to think Aunt Dorothy's grimmest sternness more pitiful than Lady Lucy's pity. I do not wish to set down what seemed to me Lady Lucy's mistakes to any sect or any doctrine. In theory all Christian sects are agreed as to the moral standard. But I believe in my heart it was the high moral standard set up, in those days, chiefly (never only) in our Puritan homes, which will be the salvation of England, if ever that pest-house, called the Court, is to be cleansed, and if England ever is to be saved. Lady Lucy's religion was one of tender, devotional emotions, minute ceremonial, and gorgeous ritual. When braced up by Christian principle, it was beautiful and attractive. The Puritan religion was one of principle and doctrine. When inspired by Divine love, it was gloriously deep and strong.