‘The foolish moppet,’ said my unmerciful sister, ’to expose herself and poor Walwyn in that way!’

I pitied her, and said that she could not help it.

’I would have run my finger through with my bodkin sooner than have made such a fool of myself,’ returned Nan.  ’And to make it worse, what should come rolling to my poor brother’s feet but three or four of our pearls?  The pearls of Ribaumont!  That was the way she kept them when she had got them, letting the string break, so that they rolled about the floor anyhow!’

She had heard all this from Harry Merrycourt, and also that my brother had gathered up the pearls, and, with some other gentlemen, who had picked them up while the poor lady was carried from the room, had given them to my Lady Hartwell to be returned to Madame van Hunker, not of course escaping the remark from some of the stricter sort that it was a lesson against the being adorned with pearls and costly array.

Madame van Hunker’s swoon had not surprised any one, for she was known to have been in very delicate health ever since a severe illness which she had gone through in London.  She had been too weak to accompany her husband to Holland, and he had left her under the care of Lady Hartwell, who was a kinswoman of her own.  Harry had only seen her again at supper time the next day, when he marveled at the suffering such a pale little insignificant faded being could cause Eustace, who, though silent and resolute, was, in the eyes of one who knew him well—­evidently enduring a great trial with difficulty.

I heard the rest from my brother himself.

He was in no condition to attend the service the next day, not being able to walk to the Church, nor to sit and stand in the draughty building through the prayer and preaching that were not easily distinguished from on another.  He was glad of such a dispensation without offence, for, children, though you suppose all Protestants to be alike, such members of the English Church as my family, stand as far apart from the sects that distracted England as we do from the Huguenots; and it was almost as much against my brother’s conscience to join in their worship, as it would be against our own.  The English Church claims to be a branch of the true Catholic Church, and there are those among the Gallicans who are ready to admit her claim.

Harry Merrycourt, who was altogether a political, not a religious rebel, would gladly have kept Lord Walwyn company; but it was needful not to expose himself to the suspicion of his hosts, who would have bestowed numerous strange names on him had he absented himself.

And thus Eustace was left alone in the great hall, lord and lady, guests and soldiers, men and maids, all going off in procession across the fields; while he had his choice of the cushions in the sunny window, or of the large arm-chair by the wood fire on the hearth.