In private and in public there was quite enough to tell on that evening for intimate friends who had not met for a year, and one of whom had gone through so many vicissitudes. Nor were the other two guests by any means left out of the welcome, and the evening was a very happy one.
Mr. Fellowes intimated his intention of going himself to Walwyn with the news of Miss Darpent’s arrival, and Naomi accepted the invitation to remain at Portchester till she could be sent for from home.
It was not till the next morning that Anne Woodford could be alone with her uncle. As she came downstairs in the morning she saw him waiting for her; he held out his hands, and drew her out with him into the walled garden that lay behind the house.
“Child! dear child!” said he, “you are welcome to my old eyes. May God bless you, as He has aided you to be faithful alike to Him and to your King through much trial.”
“Ah, sir! I have sorely repented the folly and ambition that would not heed your counsel.”
“No doubt, my maid; but the spirit of humility and repentance hath worked well in you. I fear me, however, that you are come back to further trials, since probably Portchester may be no longer our home.”
“Nor Winchester?”
“Nor Winchester.”
“Then is this new King going to persecute as in the old times you talk of? He who was brought over to save the Church!”
“He accepts the English Church, my maid, so far as it accepts him. All beneficed clergy are required to take the oath of allegiance to him before the first of August, now approaching, under pain of losing their preferments. Many of my brethren, even our own Bishop and Dean, think this merely submission to the powers that be, and that it may be lawfully done; but as I hear neither the Archbishop himself, nor my good old friends Doctors Ken and Frampton can reconcile it to their conscience, any more than my brother Stanbury, of Botley, nor I, to take this fresh oath, while the King to whom we have sworn is living. Some hold that he has virtually renounced our allegiance by his flight. I cannot see it, while he is fighting for his crown in Ireland. What say you, Anne, who have seen him; did he treat his case as that of an abdicated prince?”