It Might Have Been. Emily Sarah Holt

would be candles in them, and belike will, ere long.”

      “Think you Aunt Joyce is right in what she said last night?”

      “I fear so, Lettice,” she answered very gravely. “We have not yet seen the last, I doubt, of Satan and his Roman legion.”

      The same afternoon, Lettice had a talk with old Rebecca, which almost frightened her. She went up to the gallery for another look at the two pictures, and Rebecca passing by, Lettice begged that if she were not very busy, she would tell her something about them. In reply she heard a long story, which increased her reverential love for the dead grandfather, and made her think that “Cousin Anstace” must have been an angel indeed. Rebecca had lived in the Hill House for sixty years, and she well remembered her mistress’s sister.

      “Mind you Queen Mary’s days, Rebecca?” asked Lettice.

      “Eh, sweet heart!” said the old servant. “They could ne’er be forgot by any that lived in them.”

      “Saw you any of the dreadful burnings?”

      “Ay, did I, Mrs. Lettice,” said she—“even the head and chief of them all, of my Lord’s Grace of Canterbury. I saw him hold forth his right hand in the flame, that had signed his recantation: and after all was over, and the fire out, I drew nigh with the crowd, and beheld his heart entire, uncharred amongst the ashes. Ah my mistress! if once you saw such a sight as that, you could never forget it, your whole life thereafter.”

      “It must have been dreadful, Rebecca!” said Lettice.

      “Well, it was, in one way,” she answered: “and yet, in another, it was right strengthening. I never felt so strong in the faith as that hour, and for some while after. It was like as if Heaven had been opened to me, and I had a glimpse of the pearly portals, and the golden street, and the white waving wings of the angels as he went in.”

      “Saw you the Bishops burned, Rebecca—Dr. Ridley and Dr. Latimer?”

      “I did not, Mrs. Lettice; yet have I seen them both, prisoners, led through Oxford streets. Dr. Ridley was a man with a look so grave that it was well-nigh severe: but Dr. Latimer could break a jest with any man, and did, yea, with his very judges.”

      “Were you ever in any danger, Rebecca?—or Mrs. Morrell?”

      “I never was, Mrs. Lettice; but my good mistress was once well-nigh taken of the catchpoll (constable). You ask her to tell you the story, how she came at him with the red-hot poker. And after that full quickly she packed her male, and away to Selwick to Sir Aubrey and her Ladyship, where she tarried hid until Queen Elizabeth came in.”

      “Think you there shall ever be such doings in England again?”

      “The Lord knoweth,” and old Rebecca shook her white head. “There’s not a bit of trust to be put in them snakes of priests and Jesuits and such like: not a bit! Let them get the upper hand again, and we shall have the like times. Good Lord, deliver us from them all!”

      Lettice went down, intending to ask Aunt Joyce to tell her the story of the red-hot poker; but she never thought of it again, so absorbed was she with what the two old ladies were saying as she came in. They did not hear her enter: and the first word she heard made her so desirous of more, that she crept as softly as she could to a seat. Curiosity was her besetting sin.

      “She used not to be thus,” said Lady Louvaine. “Truly, I know not what hath thus sorrowfully changed the poor child; but I would some means might be found to undo the same. Even for some years after Ned’s death, I mind not this change; it came on right slowly and by degrees.”

      Lettice felt pretty sure that “she” was Aunt Faith.

      “ ’Tis weakness, I suppose,” said Lady Louvaine, in a questioning tone.

      “Ay, we are all weak some whither,” replied Aunt Joyce; “and Faith’s weakness is a sort to show. She is somewhat too ready to nurse her weaknesses, and make pets of them. ’Tis bad enough for a woman to pet her own virtues; but when she pets her vices, ’tis a hard thing to better her. But, Lettice, there is a strong soul among you—a rare soul, in good sooth; and there is one other, of whose weakness, and what are like to be its consequences, I am far more in fear than of Faith’s.”

      “Nay, who mean you?” asked Lady Louvaine in a perplexed voice.

      “I mean the two lads—Hans and Aubrey.”

      “Hans is a good lad, truly.”

      “Hans has more goodness in him than you have seen the end of, by many a mile. But Aubrey!”

      “You reckon not Aubrey an ill one, I hope?”

      “By which you mean, one that purposes ill? Oh no, by no means. He is a far commoner character—one that hath no purpose, and so being, doth more real ill than he that sets forth to do it of malicious intent.”

      “Are you assured you wrong not the lad, Joyce, in so saying?”

      “If I do, you shall full shortly know it. I trust it may be so. But he seems to me to have a deal more of Walter in him than Ned, and to be right the opposite of our Aubrey in all main conditions.”

      “Ah,” sighed the widow, in a very tender tone, “there can be no two of him!” Then after a little pause, “And what sayest thou to Lettice—my little Lettice?”

      The concealed listener pricked up both her ears.

      Aunt Joyce gave a little laugh. “Not so very unlike an other Lettice that once I knew,” said she. “Something less like to fall in the same trap, methinks, and rather more like to fall in an other.”

      “Now, tell me what other?”

      “I mean, dear heart, less conceit of her favour (beauty), and more of her wisdom. A little over-curious and ready to meddle in matters that concern her not. A good temper, methinks, and more patience than either of her aunts on the father’s side: as to humility—well, we have none of us too much of that.”

      “Joyce, wouldst thou like to have us leave Lettice a while with thee? She could wait on thee and read to thee, and be like a daughter to thee. I will, if thou wouldst wish it.”

      “Nay, that would I not, Lettice, for the child’s own sake. It were far better for her to go with you. There is an offer thou couldst make me, of that fashion, that my self-denial were not equal to refuse. So see thou make it not.”

      “What, now? Not Hans, trow?”

      “Edith.”

      “O Joyce!”

      “Ay, dear heart, I know. Nay, fear not. I’ll not take the last bud off the old tree. But, thyself saved, Lettice, there is none left in all the world that I love as I love her. Perchance she will find it out one day.”

      “Joyce, my dear sister—”

      “Hold thy peace, Lettice. I’ll not have her, save now and again on a visit. And not that now. Thou shouldst miss her sorely, in settling down in thy new home. Where shall it be?”

      “In the King’s Street of Westminster. My good Lord Oxford hath made earnest with a gentleman, a friend of his, that hath there an estate, to let us on long lease an house and garden he hath, that now be standing empty.”

      “Ay, that is a pleasant, airy place, nigh the fields. At what rent?”

      “Twenty-four shillings the quarter. Houses be dearer there than up in Holborn, yet not so costly as in the City; and it shall not be far for Aubrey, being during the day in the Court with his Lord.”

      “Lettice, you shall need to pray for that boy.”

      “What shall I ask for him, Joyce?”

      “ ‘That he may both perceive and know what things he ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same.’