ough with several sighs for poor Osbert. Cecily
initiated Philip into her simple rules for her patient's treatment in
case of the return of his more painful symptoms. The notion of sending
female attendants for Eustacie was also abandoned: her husband's
presence rendered them unnecessary, or they might be procured at La
Sablerie; and thus it happened that the only servants whom Berenger was
to take with him were Humfrey Holt and John Smithers, the same honest
fellows whose steadiness had so much conduced to his rescue at Paris.

Claude de Mericour had in the meantime been treated as an honoured guest
at Combe Walwyn, and was in good esteem with its master. He would have
set forth at once on his journey to Scotland, but that Lord Walwyn
advised him to wait and ascertain the condition of his relatives there
before throwing himself on them. Berenger had, accordingly, when writing
to Sidney by the messenger above mentioned, begged him to find out from
Sir Robert Melville, the Scottish Envoy, all he could about the family
whose designation he wrote down at a venture from Mericour's lips.

Sidney returned a most affectionate answer, saying that he had never
been able to believe the little shepherdess a traitor and was charmed
that she had proved herself a heroine; he should endeavour to greet her
with all his best powers as a poet, when she should brighten the English
court; but his friend, Master Spenser, alone was fit to celebrate such
constancy. As to M. l'Abbe de Mericour's friends, Sir Robert Melville
had recognized their name at once, and had pronounced them to be fierce
Catholics and Queensmen, so sorely pressed by the Douglases, that it was
believed they would soon fly the country altogether; and Sidney added,
what Lord Walwyn had already said, that to seek Scotland rather than
France as a resting-place in which to weigh between Calvinism and
Catholicism, was only trebly hot and fanatical. His counsel was that M.
de Mericour should so far conform himself to the English Church as to
obtain admission to one of the universities, and, through his uncle of
Leicester, he could obtain for him an opening at Oxford, where he might
fully study the subject.

There was much to incline Mericour to accept this counsel. He had had
much conversation with Mr. Adderley, and had attended his ministrations
in the chapel, and both satisfied him far better than what he had seen
among the French Calninists; and the peace and family affecti