When the worthy divine was fairly out of the room, Constance delivered a message from the Cavalier, stating that he had been obliged to leave Cecil Place without taking a personal leave of his kind host; and repeated his expressions of gratitude for the attentions he had experienced during his brief sojourn.

"Thank God, he is gone!" replied the Baronet, drawing his breath freely, as if relieved from a painful oppression. "Introduced as he was, it was impossible not to treat him with respect, but he strangely disturbed me. Did you not think him a cold, suspicious youth?"

"I cannot say I did, sir."

"You are singularly unsuspicious, Constance, for one so wise: you ought to learn distrust; it is a dark, a dreadful, but a useful lesson."

"Methinks one has not need to study how to be wretched; suspicion has to me ever seemed the school of misery."

The Baronet made no reply to this observation, but soon after abruptly exclaimed

"He will not come again, I suppose."

Constance did not know.

He then fancied he could walk a little; and, pressing to his side the arm on which he leaned, said—

"Ah, my child! a willing arm is more delightful to a parent than a strong one. Wilt always love thy father, Constance?"

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My dear father, do you doubt it?"

"No, my child; but suppose that any circumstance should make me poor?"

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You will find what a nice waiting-maid your daughter is." "Suppose I were dishonoured?"

"Public honour is given and taken by a breath, and is therefore of little worth; but the private and more noble honour is in our own keeping: my father keeps it safely." "But suppose that I deserved the ill word of all mankind?"

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My dear father, why trouble yourself or me with such a thought? if it so happened, you would still be my parent; but such an event is impossible."

The Baronet sighed, as if in pain. Constance looked anxiously into his face, and noted that a cold and clammy perspiration stood thickly on his brow.

"You had better sit down, dear sir."

"No, my child, I shall be better for a little air; let us go into the library."

As they entered the room, a scene of solemn drollery presented itself, that a humorous painter might well desire to portray. Kneeling on a high-backed and curiously

carved chair, was seen the lean, laky figure of Fleet word, placed within a foot of the sofa, on which, in the most uneasy manner and discontented attitude, sat the Master of Burrell. The preacher had so turned the chair that he leaned over it, pulpit-fashion; holding his small pocket Bible in his hand, he declaimed to his single auditor with as much zeal and energy as if he were addressing the Lord Protector and his court. The effect of the whole was heightened by the laughing face and animated figure of Lady Frances Cromwell, half-concealed behind an Indian skreen, from which she was, unperceived, enjoying the captivity of Burrell, whom, in her half-playful, half-serious moods, she invariably denominated "the false black Knight." Fleetword, inwardly rejoicing at the increase of his congregation, of whose presence, however, he deemed it wisdom to appear ignorant, had just exclaimed

"Has not the word of the Lord come to me, as to Elisha in the third year? and shall I not do His bidding?"

"Thou art a wonder in Israel, doubtless," said Burrell, literally jumping from his seat, and that so rudely as nearly to overturn the pulpit arrangement of the unsparing minister; "but I must salute my worthy friend, whom I am sorry to see looking so ill."

"Perform thy salutations, for they are good," said the preacher, adjusting the chair still farther to his satisfaction, "and after that I will continue; for it is pleasant repeating the things that lead unto salvation.”

"You would not, surely, sir," said Lady Frances, coming forward and speaking in an under-tone, "continue to repeat poor Lady Cecil's funeral sermon before her husband and daughter-they could not support it."

"You speak like the seven wise virgins," replied Fleetword, putting one of his long limbs to the ground, as if to descend; and then as suddenly drawing it back, he added, "But the Lord's servant is not straitened; there are many rivers in Judah, so the faithful may drink at another stream.'

"I wish you would come with me," said Lady Frances, rightly interpreting the entreating look of Constantia, " or rather, come with us, for I am sure Mistress Cecil has much to say to, and I have much to hear from, you: we will leave Sir Robert and Sir Willmott to talk over the affairs of this great nation; temporal matters must be attended to, you know: and though"-she looked for a moment at Burrell, whose countenance had not yet regained its usual suavity"I am sorry to be the means of depriving Sir Willmott of much necessary instruction, I have no doubt you will make up the deficiency to him at some future time."

CHAPTER XII.

The soote season that bud and blome forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale,
The nightingale with fethers new she sings,

The turtle to her mate hath told the tale,
Somer is come, for every spray now springs.

Ir may be readily imagined that Burrell remained in a state of extreme perplexity after the receipt of Dalton's let⚫ter, and the departure of Ben Israel. He saw there was now but one course that could preserve him from destruction, and resolved to pursue it: to cajole or compel Sir Robert Cecil to procure the immediate fulfilment of the marriage contract between himself and Constance. This was his only hope, the sheet-anchor to which he alone trusted; he felt assured that, if the Protector discovered his infamous seduction of the Jewess Zillah, he would step in, from a twofold motive, and prevent his union: in that he esteemed both the Rabbi's wisdom and his wealth, and was most unlikely to suffer one on whom his favour had been bestowed so freely, to be injured and insulted with impunity; and next, inasmuch as he entertained a more than ordinary regard for Constance Cecil, the child of an ancient friend, and the god-daughter of the Lady Claypole. Of this regard he had, within a few weeks, given a striking proof, in having selected Cecil Place above more splendid mansions, and the companionship of its youthful mistress, in preference to many more eager candidates for such an honour, when, for certain weighty reasons, he deemed a temporary absence from the Court essential to the comfort and prosperity of the Lady Frances.

The friendship that had subsisted between the family of the Protector and that of Sir Robert Cecil, was, as we have intimated, not of recent growth; the Lady Cromwell and Lady Cecil had been friends long before the husband of the former had been called to take upon him the high and palmy state

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that links his name so gloriously, so honourably-but, alas! in some respects also, so unhappily with the history of his country. When an humble and obscure individual at Ipswich, the visits of the Lady Cecil were considered as condescensions upon her part towards friends of a respectable yet of a much inferior rank. Times had changed; but he who was now a king in all but the name, and far beyond ordinary kings in the power to have his commands obeyed as widely as the winds of heaven could convey them-remembered the feelings that held sway in lowlier, yet perhaps in happier days; and, although rarely a guest at Cecil Place, he continued a staunch friend to the family, to whom he had upon several occasions extended the simple hospitalities of Hampton Court.

Towards the Lady Constance, his sentiments of respect and regard had been frequently and markedly expressed. When he beheld the fading beauty of the mother reviving with added graces and attraction in the fair form, and expressive countenance of the daughter, it was with feelings of pride, unusual to him, that he remembered his wife had been among the first to cherish and estimate the promise which the youth had given, and which the coming womanhood of Constance was surely about to fulfil.

Moreover, two sons of Sir Robert had fought and died by the side of the Protector, having been schooled in arms under his own eye; and had there been no other motive for his interference, he was not a man to have looked on the dead features of his brave companions, and have felt no interest in the relations who survived them. To the only remaining scion of a brave and honourable race, Cromwell, therefore, had many reasons for extending his protection and his regard. Sir Robert, perhaps, he considered more as an instrument than as a friend; for Cromwell, like every other great statesman, employed friends sometimes as tools, yet tools never as friends a distinction that rulers in all countrics would do well to observe. It is an old and a true saying, "that a place showeth the man;" few at that time could look upon the Protector, either in a moral or political point of view, without a blending of astonishment and admiration at his sudden elevation and extraordinary power; and more especially, at his amazing influence over all who came within the magic circle of which he was the centre. Burrell of Burrell he regarded as a clever, but a dangerous man; and was not, perhaps, sorry to believe that his union with so true a friend to the Commonwealth as Constance Cecil would convert him from a doubtful adherent, into a confirmed partisan, and gain over to his cause many of the

wavering, but powerful families of Kent and Sussex, with whom he was connected.

Burrell, however, had succeeded in satisfying Cromwell that the proposed union had the full consent and approbation, not only of Sir Robert Cecil, but of his daughter.The protracted illness of Lady Cecil had much estranged Constance from her friends, and, as the subject was never alluded to in any of the letters that passed between her and her godmother, it was considered that the marriage was not alone one of policy, but to which, if the heart of Constance were not a party, her mind was by no means averse. Of the Protector's views upon these several topics, Burrell was fully aware; and he dreaded the discovery, not only of his own conduct, but of the feelings that existed towards him on the part of his affianced bride; there were other topics that did not so readily occur to the mind of Burrell, but that would have been of themselves sufficiently weighty to have confirmed his worst fears for his own safety, the Protector's stern love of justice, and his especial loathing of that vice of which the villain had been guilty, Had the Jew, Ben Israel, and the maiden, Constance Cecil, been inditferent persons in his sight, the double treachery of Burrell would have been requited upon his head.

Next to Hugh Dalton, no man possessed so unbounded, and so apparently unaccountable an influence over Sir Robert Cecil as Sir Willmott Burrell: he knew, as we have elsewhere stated, many of his secrets, and shrewdly guessed at others of more weighty import, while, with the ready sagacity of an accomplished knave, he contrived to appear well acquainted with matters of which he was altogether ignorant, but the existence of which he had abundant reasons for suspecting. The enfeebled health and growing infirmities of the Baronet rendered him an easy prey to his wily acquaintance, who, driven to his last resource, resolved upon adopting any course that might save him from destruction, by inducing Sir Robert, not only to sanction, but command an immediate marriage with his daughter.

In commencing the conversation with Burrell, Sir Robert peevishly complained of the annoyance to which he had been subjected in receiving and accommodating the young friend of Major Welmore, although he abstained from the indulgence of feelings similar to those he had exhibited in the presence of his daughter. He then murmured bitterly of sleepless nights-of restless days-of watchings and weariness of hideous dreams of the toils, turmoils, and unfaithfulness of the world-the usual theme of those who have done nothing to merit its fidelity; and, as Sir Will