There was one point of the matter in respect to which Lawrence was by no means indifferent. The style in which the Lady Alianora behaved to her youthful admirer enraged him beyond words. The beautiful girl was a born coquette. And she treated Roger to every variety of behaviour suggested by that despicable type of character. One day she would lift him up to the heights of ecstacy with her notice and favour, and on the next would plunge him into the lowest depths of despair. It appeared to delight her to play with his feelings like a cat with a mouse. That she had any of her own Lawrence could not discover. But as time went on, and they grew older, and the sentimental adoration of the boy, instead of fading away, blossomed into the solid and enduring love of the man, the sensation of aversion on Lawrence’s part became stronger than ever. He would never have used Roger as she did, had he been in her place. Roger appeared not to perceive this blemish in his chosen idol. All that she chose to do was perfection in his eyes. It may perhaps strike the reader as hardly possible that a boy of Roger’s age could have entertained such feelings. But we have abundant evidence that our fathers, five hundred years ago, grew up much earlier than we do—probably in part from the shorter average duration of human life, and in part from the forcing nature of the life they led. A boy of twelve, in 1385, had attained a period of life equivalent to that of a youth of at least sixteen in the present day. If it could have been whispered to Roger Mortimer that he was flinging away his true and faithful heart upon a worthless weed, while there were modest violets to be found under the leaves—that he was bartering his priceless diamonds for glass beads which were not worth the picking up—well, he would not have believed it. But in truth he had met with the evil angel of his life, and he was yielding unto her fair false hands the perfect trust and the passionate devotion which were only due to God. Would he ever awake from the dream? and if he did, would it be while there was yet time left to repair his blunder, or only when it was too late, and there remained but a long weary stretch of the wilderness before the end should come? Ah, the Good Shepherd goes after His lost sheep, until He find them. But they are apt to lead Him up arid steeps and into sunless gulfs, through thorns which tear their feet as well as His, and into dry places where no water is beside the stream which flows from the smitten Rock.