“Ah! God be his rest!” said Dr Thorpe, meditatively. “He did not alway the right, but—”
“Do you?” answered Mr Rose, pointedly enough, with a quick flash in his eyes.
“As said poor King Harry, ‘Kingdoms are but cares,’” said John (Note 3). “He hath found a better now.”
“He hath found a better, I am assured,” answered Mr Rose, “and is now singing the new song before the Throne. Methinks he doth not wish himself back now.”
“I marvel,” suggested Dr Thorpe, half sorrowfully, yet a little scornfully, “how he and the Queen Katherine shall get along the one with the other in Heaven?”
“I count, old friend,” answered John, “that the Lutheran Queen and the Gospelling Duke will each be taken up too much with the mercy that hath forgiven his sins, to have any leisure for counting up those of the other.”
“Well, they will lack something of the sort,” replied the old man.
“How can there be disagreement where each seeth clear?” said Mr Rose, “or how any disliking in the presence of the Mediator?”
Dr Thorpe made no answer, but he shook Mr Rose’s offered hand warmly; and when he was gone, he said, “That is a good man. I would I were a better.”
“Amen!” responded Avery, “for us all.”