‘I was going to inquire for the all-for-love principle,’ said Claude, ’but I see it is in full force.  And how are the verses, Lily?  Have you made a poem upon Michael Moone, or Mohun, the actor, our uncle, whom I discovered for you in Pepys’s Memoirs?’

‘Nonsense,’ said Lily; ’but I have been writing something about Sir Maurice, which you shall hear whenever you are not in this horrid temper.’

The next afternoon, as soon as luncheon was over, Lily drew Claude out to his favourite place under the plane-tree, where she proceeded to inflict her poem upon his patient ears, while he lay flat upon the grass looking up to the sky; Emily and Jane had promised to join them there in process of time, and the four younger ones were, as usual, diverting themselves among the farm buildings at the Old Court.

Lily began:  ’I meant to have two parts about Sir Maurice going out to fight when he was very young, and then about his brothers being killed, and King Charles knighting him, and his betrothed, Phyllis Crossthwayte, embroidering his black engrailed cross on his banner, and then the taking the castle, and his being wounded, and escaping, and Phyllis not thinking it right to leave her father; but I have not finished that, so now you must hear about his return home.’

’A romaunt in six cantos, entitled Woe woe, By Miss Fanny F. known more commonly so,’

muttered Claude to himself; but as Lily did not understand or know whence his quotation came, it did not hurt her feelings, and she went merrily on:-

’’Tis the twenty-ninth of merry May;
Full cheerily shine the sunbeams to-day,
   Their joyous light revealing
Full many a troop in garments gay,
With cheerful steps who take their way
   By the green hill and shady lane,
While merry bells are pealing;
And soon in Beechcroft’s holy fane
The villagers are kneeling. 
Dreary and mournful seems the shrine
Where sound their prayers and hymns divine;
   For every mystic ornament
   By the rude spoiler’s hand is rent;
   Scarce is its ancient beauty traced
   In wood-work broken and defaced,
   Reft of each quaint device and rare,
   Of foliage rich and mouldings fair;
   Yet happy is each spirit there;
      The simple peasantry rejoice
   To see the altar decked with care,
      To hear their ancient Pastor’s voice
   Reciting o’er each well-known prayer,
   To view again his robe of white,
   And hear the services aright;
   Once more to chant their glorious Creed,
   And thankful own their nation freed
   From those who cast her glories down,
   And rent away her Cross and Crown. 
   A stranger knelt among the crowd,
   And joined his voice in praises loud,
   And when the holy rites had ceased,
   Held converse with the aged Priest,
   Then turned to join the village feast,
   Where, raised on the hill’s summit green,