"Yes," answered Mary, "he has one great fault, he is a Presbyterian, and a Scotch Presbyterian. In all other things he holds with the Lord General, but he sticks to his Scotch idols—John Knox and the Covenant."
"I think no worse of him for that," said Jane. "If he knew what an Independent was, he would likely be an Independent."
"It is not believable," retorted Mary. "He is a Scotchman, or next door to one. And if a man is a Samaritan, what can he know of Jerusalem?"
"I care not what he is," said Frances. "He has handsome eyes, and he writes poetry, and he tells such stories as make your blood run cold—and sometimes love-stories, and then his voice is like music; and if it was not sinful to dance——"
"But it is sinful," said Jane warmly, "and if I saw Lord Neville or any other man making mincing steps to a viol I would never wish to speak to him again. Would you, Mary?"
"Of course not, but Frank is only talking. We have masters now in music and singing and geography, and I am learning Morley's Airs[1] straight through, besides roundelays and madrigals. And we have a new harpsichord, though the Lord General, my father, likes best the organ or the lute."
[1] Popular and patriotic songs having the same vogue then as Moore's Melodies in our era.
"And besides all this," continued Frances, "we are studying the French tongue, and history, and the use of the globes; and Mrs. Katon comes twice every week to teach us how to make wax flowers and fruit and take the new stitches in tatting and embroidery. And, Jane, I have got a glass bowl full of goldfish. They came from China, and there are no more of them, I think, in England. Come with me, and you shall see them."
"Never mind the fish now, Frank," said Mary; "there is the bell for dinner, and we must answer it at once or we shall grieve mother."
They rose at these words and went quickly to the dining-room. Mrs. Cromwell, leaning upon the arm of her daughter, Mrs. Ireton, was just entering it, and Jane wondered silently at the state these simple country gentry had so easily assumed. Officers of the household, in rich uniforms, waited on all their movements and served them with obsequious respect; and they bore their new honours as if they had been born to the purple. Mrs. Cromwell's simplicity stood her in the place of dignity, and the piety and stern republicanism of Mrs. Ireton gave to her bearing that indifference to outward pomp which passed readily for inherited nobility, while the beauty of Mrs. Claypole and her love of splendour fitted her surroundings with more than accidental propriety. All the women of this famous household were keenly alive to the glory of those achievements which had placed them in a palace, and all of them rendered to its great head every title of honour his mighty deeds claimed as their right.