'Well, I will leave her to your double care,' Lucy said. 'I see George follows a-foot. We will go up the hill path, and be at home before you, I'll warrant.' She ran gaily away to meet George; and as Mary was lifted on the pillion by Humphrey, Ambrose taking his place by his mother, he turned in the opposite direction, and, following Lucy and her husband, was soon out of sight.
Mother and son rode slowly along the familiar path which leads into the high road from Penshurst.
The glow of sunset was around them, and the crimson cloth mantle Mary wore shone in the westering light. So they pass out of sight, and the shadows gather over the landscape, and evening closes in. As a dream when one awaketh is the history of the past, and the individual lives which stand out in it are like phantoms which we strive, perhaps in vain, to quicken into life once more, and clothe them with the vivid colours for which imagination may lend its aid. Of the central figure of this story of the spacious times of great Elizabeth, we may say—with the sister who loved him with no common love—
|
'Ah, no! his spirit is not dead—nor can it die, But lives for aye in blissful Paradise, Where, like a new-born babe, it soft doth lie, In bed of lilies—wrapped in tender wise, And compassed all about with roses sweet, And dainty violets from head to feet.' |
THE END.
EDINBURGH
COLSTON AND COMPANY
PRINTERS
Mrs Marshall's Historical Novels.
| IN THE SERVICE OF RACHEL, LADY RUSSELL.
With Illustrations. Fourth Thousand. 'This is another of those admirable historical romances in which Mrs Marshall makes the past speak to the present.'—Spectator. |
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