mpel 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 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 stanch 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 reme