es us from temptation. But forgive me, father, if I have stepped
over the limits of my duty, in contradicting the views which you
entertain, with so many others, on these subjects."

"Nay, thou hast even too much talk for me, girl," said her father,
somewhat angrily. "I am but a poor workman, whose best knowledge is to
distinguish the left hand glove from the right. But if thou wouldst
have my forgiveness, say something of comfort to my poor Henry. There he
sits, confounded and dismayed with all the preachment thou hast heaped
together; and he, to whom a trumpet sound was like the invitation to a
feast, is struck down at the sound of a child's whistle."

The armourer, indeed, while he heard the lips that were dearest to him
paint his character in such unfavourable colours, had laid his head
down on the table, upon his folded arms, in an attitude of the deepest
dejection, or almost despair.

"I would to Heaven, my dearest father," answered Catharine, "that it
were in my power to speak comfort to Henry, without betraying the sacred
cause of the truths I have just told you. And I may--nay, I must have
such a commission," she continued with something that the earnestness
with which she spoke and the extreme beauty of her features caused for
the moment to resemble inspiration.

"The truth of Heaven," she said, in a solemn tone, "was never committed
to a tongue, however feeble, but it gave a right to that tongue to
announce mercy, while it declared judgment. Arise, Henry--rise up, noble
minded, good, and generous, though widely mistaken man. Thy faults are
those of this cruel and remorseless age, thy virtues all thine own."

While she thus spoke, she laid her hand upon the smith's arm, and
extricating it from under his head by a force which, however gentle, he
could not resist, she compelled him to raise towards her his manly face,
and the eyes into which her expostulations, mingled with other feelings,
had summoned tears.

"Weep not," she said, "or rather, weep on, but weep as those who have
hope. Abjure the sins of pride and anger, which most easily beset thee;
fling from thee the accursed weapons, to the fatal and murderous use of
which thou art so easily tempted."

"You speak to me in vain, Catharine," returned the armourer: "I may,
indeed, turn monk and retire from the world, but while I live in it I
must practise my trade; and while I form armour and weapons for others,
I cannot myself withstand the temptation of