was fortunate, that, amid the stirring and necessary duties of those times, he was provided with so plain, so manly, so healthy an adviser. Side by side, with a profound self-abasement, grew a sentiment of self-respect, that prevented his spirit being paralysed, or cast down below the right degree of energy required of him by his position at the moment. He was now truly prepared, in a more noble frame of mind, to render good and faithful service wherever the cause of his king and country might lead him. Now, too, he understood and respected the motives which decided Juxon to remain at his own proper post, and to perform his own sacred duties to the last moment.

In the fortnight which passed about this period he lived long; that is, he gathered the experience which is usually the fruit of a much longer space of time.

Swiftly as the days glided by, they fully developed the love of Juxon and Jane Lambert; and, although Katharine could not persuade Juxon to hear of Jane’s being exposed to the inconvenience and danger of becoming his wife, at a time when the clergy might expect a persecution, yet she did enjoy the happiness of seeing them seated before her in the sweet and interesting relation of avowed and betrothed lovers.

CHAP. IV.