overthrow as indulged malice and deliberate hardening
of the heart against the love of God and man.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was not, as Piers and Clarice had feared there might have been,
any misfortune to them in the way of preventing their marriage. King
Edward had great respect for justice and honour, and finding that his
cousin had, though without legal formalities, granted Clarice's marriage
to Piers, he confirmed the grant, and Father Bevis married them quietly
in the chapel of Berkhamsted Castle, without any festivity or
rejoicings, for the embalmed body of the master to whom they owed so
much lay in state in the banquet-hall. It was a mournful ceremony,
where--

"The cheers that had erst made the welkin ring
Were drowned in the tears that were shed for the King."

Clarice and Piers made no attempt to obtain any further promotion. They
retired to a little estate in Derbyshire, which shortly afterwards fell
to Piers, and there they spent their lives, in serving their generation
according to the will of God, often brightened by visits from Ademar and
Heliet, who had taken up their abode not far from them in the
neighbouring county of Rutland. And as time went on, around Clarice
grew up brave sons and fair daughters, to all of whom she made a very
loving mother; but, perhaps, no one was ever quite so dear to her heart
as the star which had gleamed on her life the brighter for the
surrounding darkness, the little white rosebud which had been gathered
for the garden of God.

"In other springs her life might be
In bannered bloom unfurled;
But never, never match her wee
White Rose of all the world."

It was not until the spring which followed his death was blooming into
green leaves and early flowers that the coffin of Edmund, Earl of
Cornwall, was borne to the magnificent Abbey of Hales in
Gloucestershire, founded by his father. There they laid him down by
father and mother--the grand, generous, spendthrift Prince who had so
nearly borne the proud title of Caesar Augustus, and the fair, soft,
characterless Princess who had been crowned with him as Queen of the
Romans. For the Prince who was laid beside them that Easter afternoon,
the world had prepared what it considers a splendid destiny. Throne and
diadem, glory and wealth, love and happiness, were to have been his, so
far as it lay in the world's power to give them; but on most of a