room to her father.

"Don't cry, father!" she murmured, with her own eyes streaming. "It hurts
me to see you."

"Nay, Angela," he answered, clasping her to his breast. "Forgive me that
I think more of my dead King than of my living daughter. Poor child, thou
hast seen nothing but sorrow since thou wert born; a land racked by civil
war; Englishmen changed into devils; a home ravaged and made desolate;
threatenings and curses; thy good grandmother's days shortened by sorrow
and rough usage. Thou wert born into a house of mourning, and hast seen
nothing but black since thou hadst eyes to notice the things around thee.
Those tender ears should have heard only loving words. But it is over,
dearest; and thou hast found a haven within these walls. You will take care
of her, will you not, madam, for the sake of the niece you loved?"

"She shall be the apple of my eye. No evil shall come near her that my care
and my prayers can avert. God has been very gracious to our order--in all
troublous times we have been protected. We have many pupils from the best
families of Flanders--and some even from Paris, whence parents are glad to
remove their children from the confusion of the time. You need fear nothing
while this sweet child is with us; and if in years to come she should
desire to enter our order----"

"The Lord forbid!" cried the cavalier. "I want her to be a good and pious
papist, madam, like her sweet mother; but never a nun. I look to her as the
staff and comfort of my declining years. Thou wilt not abandon thy father,
wilt thou, little one, when thou shalt be tall and strong as a bulrush, and
he shall be bent and gnarled with age, like the old medlar on the lawn at
the Manor? Thou wilt be his rod and staff, wilt thou not, sweetheart?"