By his brother's death Basil recovered his lands; for his present majesty hath some time since recalled the sentence of his banishment. And many of his friends have moved him to return to England; but for more reasons than one he refused so much as to think of it, and has compounded his estate for £700, 8s. 6d.
Our children have now grown unto ripe years. Muriel (who would have been a nun if she had followed her godmother's example) is now married, to her own liking and our no small contentment, to a very commendable young gentleman, the son of Mr. Yates, and hath gone to reside with him at his seat in Worcestershire; and Ann, Lady Arundel's god-daughter, nothing will serve but to be a "holy Mary," as the French people do style those dames which that great and good prelate, M. de Genève, hath assembled in a small hive at Annecy, like bees to gather honey of devotion in the garden of religion. This should seem a strange fancy, this order being so new in the Church, and the place so distant; but time will show if this should be God's will; and if so, then it must needs be ours also.
What liketh me most is that my son Roger doth prove the very image of his father, and the counterpart of him in his goodness. I am of opinion that nothing better can be desired for him than that he never lose so good a likeness.
And now farewell, pen and ink, mine old companions, for a brief moment resumed, but with a less steady hand than heretofore; now not to be again used except for such ordinary purposes as housewifery and friendship shall require.
[THE END]
UNSHED TEARS.
Once I believed that tears alone
Could tell of sorrow deep;
O blessed those whose eyes overflow!
Within my heart I weep.
And many think me calm, because
My cheek unwet appears;
The happy ones! they never know
The pain of unshed tears.