'Methinks those who lie a-bed late lose the best of the day, Philip, and how surpassingly lovely Penshurst is.'

'Wilton does not make it less dear, then, Mary.'

'Nay, both are beautiful, and,' she added, 'both are home now; but tender thoughts ever cling to the place where childhood has been passed. And how fares it with you, dear brother?' the Countess of Pembroke said, as she put her hand within Philip's arm.

'But ill, Mary. I strive, God knoweth, to conquer, but I cannot, I cannot.'

'Nay, Philip, you shall not say so. You must conquer.'

'If I could free myself from the chain—if I could—but it maddens me, Mary, to think she loved me, and that I was so blind, so blind. She is the wife of a man she loathes, and I—I am to blame. I, who would have died for her.'

'Live for her, Philip. Live to show her all that is noble and pure in your life, and so do her good and not evil. Yes, dear brother, by nurturing this love you do her a worse evil than you know of. Sure, you would not bring her to a new misery, a worse misery.'

'No, no. I would not, yet I would. But the sting lies here; hearken, Mary, to this sonnet, lately penned:—

'I might—unhappy word! O me! I might,
And then would not, or could not, see my bliss
Till now, wrapped in a most infernal night,
I find how heavenly day—wretch! I did miss.
Heart, rend thyself, thou dost thyself but right.
No lovely Paris made thy Helen his;
No force, no fraud, robbed thee of thy delight;
Nor Fortune of thy fortune author is.
But to myself, myself did give the blow,
While too much wit, forsooth, so troubled me,
That I respects, for both our sakes, must show.
And yet could not by rising morn foresee
How fair a day was near—O punished eyes!
That I had been more foolish, or more wise!'
Astrophel and Stella, Sonnet xxxiii.

'Dear brother,' the Countess of Pembroke said,—'these wild laments are not worthy of you. You shall not make any man moan. You will conquer at last, and come out of the fight a nobler man. The very beauty around us seems to bid us rejoice to-day. Come, let us speak of happier themes. You will like to see my little Will, and carry back good news of him to the Queen, whose godson he is. Tell her she hath a brave knight in store in our little Will. You scarce ever saw such tricks as he has, and is not yet one year old.'