Of the four children, Anne was his special darling. She and her brother Roger took after himself in character, while Edmund and Alianora were their mother's children. Least attractive of them was Edmund, in whose disposition indolence and selfishness were already manifesting themselves strongly. When the children were summoned in the morning, Anne and Roger were always up in a moment, while Edmund had to be dug out of bed amid a storm of grumbles. All that Anne owed to her mother was that graceful and gracious manner, which with the mother was merely artificial polish, but in the daughter was ingrained as a part of her character. The child's affection for her father was intense: she always shrank from her mother. The instinct of her true heart discerned the utter hollowness of Alianora, and the two natures could never amalgamate.
April had almost bloomed into May when the party reached Trim Castle, where Roger meant to remain for a few weeks.
CHAPTER X.
MARCUS CURTIUS.
"Yet thy true heart and loving faith,
And agony of martyr death,
God saw,—and He remembereth."
—F. J. PALGRAVE.
"What think you on thus sadly, my son?" said Mr. Robesart to Lawrence Madison, whom he found standing with folded arms, gazing out of an embrasure as though he were not contemplating the landscape.
"I was thinking, Father," was the answer, in a low, dreamy tone, "wherein success lieth."
"What fashion of success?"
Lawrence smiled, "I am beginning to learn that there be more fashions thereof than one."
"It is good to learn it early," said the priest. "For man is apt to think that alone success which hath a gloss and a glitter about it. We be too oft like childre, which would rather a brass counter that did shine bravely, than a gold noble that was dull and covered with dirt. But what be thy thoughts thereon, my son?"