"But, Miles, how often I have heard you say that these crosses were traps and snares, leading the people to idolatry!"
Sir Miles nodded. "It is true, too true," he said, "and yet the removal of them will cause pain and bitterness, and, it may be, anger and enmity against the new light and knowledge that the reading of God's Word will certainly bring to those who learn to love and read it for themselves."
"Better leave talking of these matters until we reach home," whispered Lady Guildford, warningly. "We do not talk in the streets now," she added, in answer to her daughter's look of amazement, "it has ceased to be the fashion," and they walked some distance in silence.
Sir Miles, of course, understood Lady Guildford's caution, and he resolved to tell his wife, as soon as he could, that she must be upon her guard—but it would be safer to gain the shelter of her old home before a word of this matter was explained.
"Shall I see the new Queen?" asked Cicely, after a minute's silence, and forgetting her mother's words about not talking in the street.
"She often walks in the Park with her ladies," replied her mother; "we will tell you all about that when we reach home," she hastened to add, for she was in fear lest she should speak some word concerning the late Queen that might give an advantage to any spy that should be near, and Cicely, though she wondered, and certainly disapproved of the rule forbidding friends to talk when and where they pleased, did not attempt any further questions until they reached home, the dear old home she had left to please her mistress, Queen Catherine, whose ideas of life in the convent had filled her with vague longings for a monastic vocation.
Ah! what a bitter awakening the reality had proved! During the few months she had spent at that Franciscan convent overlooking Greenwich Park, she had passed through a lifetime of disappointment and disgust, from which she had been rescued almost by a miracle in the streets of Oxford. And at the thought of what her husband had been to her, she placed her hand in his as they re-entered the old home she had despaired of ever seeing again.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
AT GREENWICH.
IT was a pleasant meal that was served in Sir Harry Guildford's keeping-room,—a meal rather more stately and ceremonious than at Woodstock, where Sir Miles kept up the old fashion of having all his household servants gathered at the same board. Here at Greenwich, however, it had been found more convenient to follow the usage set by the Court lately, and only his own family and friends sat down to dinner now in the Guildford household. As soon as the dishes were set on the table, the servants left the room, until they were again required; and by this means the family could talk more freely than they could have done with servants present. There was a good deal of pleasant chitchat, from which Lady Paton learned that the practical outcome of the more general reading of the New Testament by the people, was different from that which had taken place among them at quiet Woodstock.