“ When the Lady Anne of York, in her innocent girlhood, scarcely more than a child, stood at the altar with Henry Duke of Exeter, she would probably have repulsed with indignant horror the prophet who should have told her that ere twenty years were over, she would fling overboard, careless what fate he met, the husband who would have loved her if she had given him leave, for the sake of a young man who was merely attracted by her beauty, rank, and wealth. ”

“ Agnes had to think. "I scarce can tell," said she. "I were o'er young when my mother died to feel any loss."
"What happy maids be ye!" came softly from Lady Anne, who had listened hitherto without joining. "Dear damsels, I pray you to thank God that the worsest loss ye know is the loss of death."
"Can there be a worser, Madam?"
"Aye, Marion, there be losses in life far wofuller."
"Your Ladyship scarce speaks from your own knowledge, methinks."
"Aye, but I do!" answered the bride sadly. "We may lose our living, in a sorer fashion than our dead. ”

“ Half an hour he spent with Mistress Jane Grisacres in the hall—a half-hour which was a weary weight to him, and a moment of enchantment to her, for—alas for poor Jane Grisacres!—she loved the handsome suitor who cared so little about her. This business well over, Mr. St. Leger slipped out of the hall, and passed lightly up a spiral staircase, to do his real wooing in another chamber, to a lady who had double the beauty, and ten times the position, but not one per cent. of the heart, of poor Jane Grisacres.
Men and women do not leap, but grow, into monsters of iniquity. ”

“ Agnes, you have dwelt in this house a full year, and you know the sorrows thereof as well as I. Specially, you know my sorrows—you know that I live a life wherein there is nothing to make the present happy, and the future is all full of a great dread. There is only one in all the world that loves me, and I cannot go to him: and one that I love not, and that loves not me, is about to be forced upon me whether I will or no. ”

“ He came only to secure his duchy of York, as he sweetly assured the people of Holderness when they opposed his landing. Surely they would allow him to proceed to his own property—to his own city? He was the truest subject King Henry had, nor would he ever have been otherwise but for the inciting of that wicked Earl of Warwick. He stuck the ostrich feather in his cap—the badge of Prince Edward,—and solemnly swore eternal allegiance to King Henry. The honest folks in Holderness were completely won by this fine-spoken man. They fell back, and let him ride on to York. ”

“ In all the whole world that is, and in the life that is to be, there is not one ray of sunlight for me. Do you marvel, Agnes, if life looks black to mine eyes? Are you one of those surface seers, that reckon a woman should be comforted for a breaking heart by a necklace of pearl, and that she is a fool to weep for a lost friend if she have a new gown of crimson velvet? ”

“ The sorrows of the one were close to their ending, while those of the other had little more than begun. Treated at first with apparent kindness and lenity—placed in the keeping of her uncle, and suffered to visit her beloved mother-in-law,—the Princess of Wales maintained so dauntless a front, and so unswerving a resolution, that Gloucester saw plainly that to wait for any change in her would be to wait for ever. No earthly consideration would ever make her willingly wed with him. ”

“ Jane shook her head as if she thought that very questionable.
"Men be queer matter," said she. "Now you can make out a woman."
"Good lack! think you making out is all?" replied Marion. "She is easy enough to make out, is Her Grace. So is Tamzine. But I love their company never a whit the more for that. Gramercy, there goeth my Lady's handbell! I must away."
In an upper room in the same house two other girls were sitting. One, who sat at work in the window-seat, was so like Frideswide that we can easily guess her to be Agnes Marston. ”

“ The Abbess was sorely exercised by this request. It must imply either strong vanity in the dying nun, or else a most undue attachment to earthly things. Nay, probably, it meant what was still worse—an attachment to earthly persons: a most improper thing in a professed nun! The Abbess hesitated, but the woman's heart in her prevailed, as she looked into the wistful, dying eyes.
"My sister, shall I do well if I say aye? Thou wist no holy nun must have affinity with the world. Who gave thee the ring?"
"One that hath been dust these sixty years."
"Well, well! be it so. I trust thee, Sister Agnes. ”

“ The dead can go no further from us than they be: and the day cometh when we shall go to them. But the living may go further away from us till they never come back again: aye, and worser—for they may go further and further from God till they never come back to Him. And who shall measure the loss of a lost life?—who shall measure the loss of a lost soul?"
"Cheery talk for a bride of her wedding-eve!" muttered Marion, not for Lady Anne to hear. ”

“ That gold chain and those slashed sleeves marked an esquire at the lowest; the gilt spurs could be worn by none under a knight; and the peculiar cut of the cloak revealed to the initiated that he who bore it must be a peer of the realm. It was no wonder if Jack and his grandmother felt slightly nervous when they discovered that the friend whom Master William Sterys—himself the grandest person they knew—had asked leave to bring, was no other than his noble master, Henry Duke of Exeter. ”

“ Is He that carried our sins away upon His cross become so weak that He cannot bear our sorrows now? If He can hold heaven and earth, verily He can hold you and me."
"Amen!" said the Duke softly. "Mistress Frideswide, we may never set eyes again each on other: and you and your sister have been true friends to me. Pray you, do me so much pleasure as to wear this gold chain for my sake. I would I had a better gift to mine hand, but a man that hath spent half his life in exile, and hath his lands proscribed, is not he that can make rich gifts." ”

“ He would make his wife jointure of sixty pound by the year, and an house—not so ill, eh?"
"Has he a wife?" demanded Lady Margery rather slily.
"Nay, for that he came hither," said her husband, laughing complacently.
"Dear heart, but Doll is o'er young to be wed yet—think you not so, my Lord?" responded she, with an affectation of innocent simplicity.
"Doll!" cried Lord Marnell. "Gramercy, what would the woman be at? Doll! she is but a babe in the cradle. 'Tis Annis he would have—where be thine eyes, Madge?"
Lady Margery's laugh revealed her joke. ”

“ Agnes Marston was one of those shy, undemonstrative, yet deeply-feeling natures, to whom talking of any thing they feel deeply is all but impossible. The fervent souls who wear their hearts upon their sleeves never comprehend a nature like this. They always think them cold, impassive, unfeeling. Yet such have shown themselves capable of martyr death: and they beyond all others can live the martyr life. [#] The most suffering life, and the most saintly, is the life that has no outlet except towards God. ”

“ Lord Marnell was up in an instant, his wife warmly embracing her step-daughter, and Dorathie clinging to her as though she had not seen her for a life-time. Agnes returned the greetings as warmly as they were given, and when all the kisses and blessings were over, presented John Combe.
There was a cordial welcome for Queen Marguerite's henchman at Lovell Tower, and he was of course desired to remain there as long as it suited his convenience. Any thing less would have been very rude in the eyes of the fifteenth century. ”

“ For let Edward or Henry be termed the King, it was Warwick who "had all Englond at his bedyng," and the man who offended this master of kings was not likely to be king much longer. Edward had sent Warwick to France to negotiate for his marriage to Bona of Savoy, the Queen's sister, and while the envoy was away, the master fell into the toils of the fair face and golden hair and sweet purring ways of the Lady Grey of Groby. As Edward had passed his life on the easy principle of never denying himself any thing, he acted consistently in marrying the lady. ”

“ That evening, after Edward had entered his metropolis in triumph, King Henry was brought, attired in a long gown of blue velvet, from the fatal field of Gladmore Heath, to that silent dungeon in the Tower which he had occupied so long that it must have borne almost a homelike look to him, and which he was never to leave again, except for the better Home above.
When the military grave-diggers came to bury the dead, they found lying on Gladmore Heath the body of the Duke of Exeter. He had fought manfully, and had fallen at seven o'clock, since which time he had lain insensible on the field. ”

“ But York was held by a Clifford,—sternest of all families adherent to the House of Lancaster. It was the head of that House—the "Bloody Clifford,"—who, just ten years before, had gleefully cut off the head of Edward's father, had crowned it with a paper crown, and set it high on Micklegate Bar. He, too, had stabbed young Rutland—the best of the York brothers—in cold blood after the battle of Wakefield. As Edward came up to York, the ghastly heads upon Micklegate Bar, the foremost of which was his own father's, seemed to be the only friends to welcome him. ”

“ With how much more truth may that dying appeal which has echoed through a hundred years be made, not to liberty, but to the God of all truth and righteousness,—"What crimes are committed in Thy name!" It may have been,—nay, if she were His, it must have been,—that eleven years later, when Anne Neville's spirit returned to the God who gave it, she found that His mercy towards her was better than the mercy she desired of Him, and that but for that painful and weary beating of the gold, the vessel would have been unfit for its place in the sanctuary above. ”

“ Poor Jane, who felt herself ordered to do the impossible, made one more faint struggle with destiny.
"It should not like your Grace to bear that gown to-morrow?"
"This?" returned the Duchess contemptuously, glancing down at her dress, which was of dark blue satin, heavily trimmed with minever. "'Tis not fit to be seen. Hast lost thy wit? I tell thee, I must have a decent gown to put on. That idle Valentine hath left me never a one in my wardrobe. He is the laziest tyke that ever set needle." ”

“ Had it been so, no man would ever have heard of the Wars of the Roses. King Henry "had no sense of honour," which probably means that ambition, self-seeking, and aggressiveness were feelings utterly unknown to him. "Yea, let him take all," would have been the language of his lips and heart, so long as he had left to him a quiet home in some green nook of England, the wife and child whom he dearly loved, a few books, and peace. At times God's providence decrees peace as the lot of such men. At other rimes it seems to be the one thing with which they must not be trusted. ”

“ There is the chamber o'er here, that might be cleared forth, and the gear set in the porch-chamber. Yet mefeareth, did we our best, it should scarce be meet for any servant of such as your gracious Lordship."
"I ask it not for my servant; I want it for myself," said the Duke quietly.
Poor Mrs. Goose looked dumb-foundered, as she felt.
"My gracious Lord, so poor a lodging as we could"—— began John Goose.
"Nay, Master Goose, but my need is to lie hid. I desire to be where men shall not think lightly to look for me. And I seek an house whereon God's peace cometh. ”

“ Those who married were very few, and were decidedly independent of public opinion.
On a small, but comfortable, pallet-bed in the infirmary of the Abbey lay one nun who needed to make no such provision for future life. She had received her invitation to the King's Palace, and she lay waiting for His messengers to bring His chariot for her. She had other invitations too: loving entreaties from the distant wolds of Yorkshire, where Dorathie Rotherham, Baroness Marnell of Lymington, herself an old woman of eighty years, was longing to cheer the last days of her aged and only sister ”

“ Those about the Queen—very few they were—felt the necessity of doing for her what she was not in a position to do for herself. They hurried the royal ladies away from their dangerous place to a little religious house outside Tewkesbury, where they entered them in sanctuary. Alas for their innocence, if they expected Edward of York to keep promises or reverence sanctuary! At that moment he was presenting himself with drawn sword at the door of the church where so many of the Lancastrian nobles had taken refuge. ”

“ It might have been supposed that an earl would scarcely deem it a deplorable occurrence that he should be made a marquis: but my gracious Lord of Montague was evidently in an exceedingly bad temper. He growled and grumbled as if he were a deeply injured man,—managing, however, to keep up a contented face in the presence of his master, who appears to have fancied that he had secured Montague's fidelity. Never were there more men than at that time who were able to "smile, and smile, and be a villain": and all the Warwick brothers were certainly of the number. ”

“ A Princess would find it no hard matter to obtain a divorce. Of course the King must be amused with some other reason than the true one, as he might not fancy a marriage between his sister and his servant. But it was easy enough to take him in, by a little virtuous indignation about the wicked Lancastrian proclivities of the Duke, which made it utterly impracticable for the Duchess ever to bear him again. ”

“ He who has paid for us the price of His own life cannot afford to lose us. And then, 'when we have forded the Jordan, with the ark of the Lord borne before us, we eat of the fruit of the Land of Canaan that year.'"
Far back into the past years ran the "inner eye,"—back to a stately woman in robes of white, with long black hair flowing behind her. The years seemed obliterated, and Idonia Marnell stood in a turret-chamber of the Palace of Holyrood, with the mournful music of Marjory Douglas' voice sounding in her ears. ”

“ Agnes was silent. She had taken a text: if her hearer would preach the sermon to himself, it was far better than any comment on her part.
"I scarce looked to find one of that sort in Coldharbour now," said the Duke, with a smile which made him but look the sadder. "But you must have a care, Mistress Agnes. We be no longer under King Henry, that would not see a Christian man nor woman ill-usen. Yet I would fain, whenso you find safe chance, that you should speak such words to my little maid as you have spoken to me to-night. ”

“ It is not therefore to be wondered at, if Margery felt the open hostility rather a relief than a burden, while her mother grieved over it in secret.
"'Tis strange gear," the Lady Idonia would sometimes say, "that men cannot think alike."
"Nay, fair Sister, why should they so?" was her brother William's answer. "This were tame world if no man saw by his own eyes, but all after a pattern."
"That were well, Ida," replied the graver Maurice, "could all men see through God's eyes." ”