The Chevalier's daughter

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"Hush, my son!" said my mother reprovingly. "'Tis a besetting sin of yours to speak evil of dignities."

Andrew shrugged his shoulders, but he had too much respect to answer my mother back again.

But I am going back in my story. That very afternoon we returned to our lodgings. Our friends took leave of us cordially enough, and my aunt made me several very pretty presents, especially of a pocket working equipage, containing scissors, needles, thimble, and other implements, beautifully wrought, and packed in a very small compass.

Besides these she gave me a volume of plays and poems, which last, I am ashamed to say, I did not show to my mother. My mother presented her with a handsome clasp of Turkey stones and pearls, and my uncle with a gold snuff-box, which had belonged to her husband's father, and had a picture of some reigning beauty—I forget whom—enamelled on the lid; so we all parted friends.

The next day being Sunday, we went to a French Protestant church, where the worship was carried on according to the forms used by us in our own country. There had been an attempt made in the days of Charles the First to compel the French Protestants to conform to the Church of England, but it had not been carried out in the present reign. Great numbers of the refugees did in fact conform to the church, and indeed take orders therein, not considering the differences as essential; but others preferred the ways they were used to, and these had chapels of their own. It was to one of these churches, in Threadneedle Street, that we went; and here a great surprise awaited us.

We were no sooner seated than I began to have that feeling we have all experienced, that some one was looking earnestly at me, and turning my head about I saw in the gallery Simon and Jeanne Sablot. I could hardly believe my eyes; but there they were, decent as usual, though poorly dressed enough, and sadly changed since I had seen them last. Simon's hair was white as snow, and Jeanne's ruddy cheeks were faded and sunken. They both smiled, and then Jeanne's face was buried in her hands and her frame shaken with sobs.

I had no time to direct my mother's attention to them, for the minister at that moment entered the desk and the service began. Here was no whispering, no exchange of salutes or snuff-boxes. Many of those before the preacher had but just escaped from their enemies, thankful to have their lives given them for a prey, as the prophet says; and it was to them a wonderful thing to attend upon their worship openly and in safety.

It was not the regular minister who preached, but one who had but lately escaped from the house of bondage, and was able to give us the latest account of the unhappy country we had left behind. It was a sad tale of oppressive edicts, pressing always more and more severely upon our brethren; of families desolated and scattered; of temples pulled down and congregations dispersed. There were still sadder tales to be told, of abjurations and apostasies—some forced by harshness, others brought about by bribes and cajolery. Then the preacher changed his tone and spoke of midnight assemblies, like that of ours in the cellar of the old grange; of consistories held and discipline administered in caves and lonely places of the mountains, and of our fallen brethren coming, with tears and on bended knees, imploring to be restored to that communion to which to belong meant shame, imprisonment, and death. The old man's face shone and his voice rang like a trumpet as he told of these things, stirring every heart in the assembly, even mine. I felt miserably ashamed of my late frame of mind, and resolved that I would forsake the world, and live for heaven once more.

The sermon was long, but it came to a close at last, and the Lord's Supper was administered. It was then that my mother discovered our two old friends. I feared at first that she would faint, but she recovered herself, and when they came to us after sermon, she was far calmer and more collected than they were. She invited them home to our lodgings, which were not far distant, and they spent the rest of the day with us.

"How and when did you leave home?" was naturally the first question.