"When you were a little babe, my dear," said Cicely, "I remember, if you were frighted at aught, you used to make-believe to throw your bits of arms about my neck, and cling close to me; but after all, it warn't your clinging as kept you from falling, but me holding of you. We are all as babes in the Lord's arms, my clear. 'Tis well, surely, for us to keep clinging to Him; but, after all, it ben't that as holds us—'tis His keeping of us. It ben't always when we are looking at Him that He is closest to us. He may be nearest when we can't see Him; and I'm sure of one thing, child,—if the Good Shepherd didn't go a-seeking after the lost sheep, the lost sheep would never turn of itself and come home to the Good Shepherd;—it would only go farther and farther in the great wilderness, until it was wholly lost. 'He calleth His own sheep by name'—ben't that it?—'and leadeth them out.'[[11]] Deary me! what was we a-talking about? It seems so natural like to get round to Him."
Celia smiled sadly as Philip's remark occurred to her—"There you come round to your divinity!"
For eleven years longer George Louis of Hanover sat on the throne of England. Every year he sank lower and lower in the estimation of his subjects. When he first landed, in 1714, in tones more deep than loud, England had demanded her Queen, and had no answer. Now, through these thirteen years, she had seen her King, chosen out of all the Princes of Europe, living apart from every member of his family, and keeping up a Court which only the complete demoralization of her nobles made them not ashamed to visit. And though very dimly and uncertainly, yet reports did reach England of a guarded prison in Hanover, and of a chapel in it where, every Communion Sabbath, a white-robed prisoner knelt down before the holy table, and, laying her hand upon it, solemnly protested in the presence of God that she had done no wrong deserving of that penalty. And England began to wonder if she had spoken well in summoning to her helm the husband and gaoler of this woful, white-robed captive. If the grand question of Protestantism had not been at stake—if she could have retained that and yet have had back her old line—the throne of George Louis would have trembled and fallen under him. Not "The Fifteen," nor "The Forty-five," brought so near a second Restoration as the evil and miserable life of that crowned sinner from Hanover.
So early as 1716, George had persuaded Parliament to repeal that clause of the Act of Settlement which made obligatory the perpetual residence of the Sovereign: and no sooner had the clerk[[12]] said Le Roy le veut to the repeal, than George set out for Hanover, with extreme delight at his release. After that, he spent as little time in England as was possible.
On the 7th of June 1727, George Louis landed from England on the Dutch shores. He was travelling onwards towards Osnabrück, when, on the night of the 11th, an unknown hand threw a letter into his carriage. The King, who was alone, opened it in the expectation of seeing a petition. There were only a few lines in the letter, but they came from the dead, and were written as with fire. What met his eyes was a summons from Sophia Dorothea of Zelle, written on her death-bed in the preceding November at Ahlden, calling on him in God's name to meet her before His tribunal within a year and a day. The King was intensely superstitious. What more happened in that carriage where he sat solitary, holding in his hand the open letter from his dead wife, none ever knew: but when the carriage stopped at the gates of the Palace of Osnabrück, George Louis was dead.
There were no mourners. Least of all could England mourn for the man who had so bitterly disgraced her, and had made her feel ashamed of her choice before all the world. On the contrary, there were bonfires and bell-ringings and universal rejoicings for the accession of George Augustus, whom England welcomed with hope in her heart that he would restore the honor which his father had laid in the dust.
A vain hope, and a groundless joy.
It is on that summer day, the 11th of June 1727, that I take leave of the Passmores. A quiet family party—Lucy growing into another and a livelier Celia; Charley toning down into a second Harry; Isabella, when she condescends to shine upon Ashcliffe in her glories of carriage and Nero, being the only discordant element. She and John Rowe get on very well, by reason of the lady being mistress, and John her obedient servant. Squire and Madam Passmore have grown more white and infirm; and on one quiet summer night in the preceding year, without sound or forewarning, the angels of God came down from heaven to bear Cicely Aggett home to the Father's house. But Patient lives on, for her work is not yet over.
On that afternoon Celia and Harry had rung the bell at the gate of Sainte Marie de Chaillot, and had asked for an interview with Soeur Marie Angélique. And in the guest-chamber there came to them a pale, slender, worn-looking woman in a nun's garb, who assured them, as she had done before on several occasions, that she was making her salvation; that she trusted she had by this time nearly expiated all her sins, and that a very short time in Purgatory would suffice to purify her. Only once during the interview did her stoic calmness give way, and that was when she said of the Purgatory she anticipated, "And there I shall see Philip!" And Celia felt that nearly all she could do was to pray earnestly that this wandering sheep might see Philip elsewhere. Then they took leave of Claude Ingram, and she went back to the convent chapel, and tried to make a little more of her salvation by kneeling on the cold stones and repeating interminable Litanies and Ave Marias. So we leave her to her hard task—hardest of tasks in all the world—to stand before God without a Mediator, to propitiate the Judge by the works of the law. For "without shedding of blood is no remission."[[13]]
The summer evening is drawing to a close, as outside the convent Harry and Celia pause to watch the sunset.