is daughter of the Caesars had been fetched
into England, chiefly, to breed him children, and this she had never
done. Undoubtedly he had made a bad bargain,--he was too easy-going,
people presumed upon it. His barons snatched their cue and esteemed
Dame Anne to be negligible; whereas the clergy, finding that she
obstinately read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, under the
irrelevant plea of not comprehending Latin, began to denounce her from
their pulpits as a heretic and as the evil woman prophesied by
Ezekiel.

It was the nature of this desolate child to crave affection, as a
necessary, and pitifully she tried to purchase it through almsgiving.
In the attempt she could have found no coadjutor more ready than
Edward Maudelain. Giving was with these two a sort of obsession,
though always he gave in a half scorn of his fellow creatures which
was not more than half concealed. This bastard was charitable and
pious because he knew his soul, conceived in double sin, to be doubly
evil, and therefore doubly in need of redemption through good works.

Now in and about the Queen's lonely rooms the woman and the priest met
daily to discuss now this or that point of theology, or now (to cite a
single instance) Gammer Tudway's obstinate sciatica. Considerate
persons found something of the pathetic in their preoccupation by
these matters while, so clamantly, the dissension between the young
King and his uncles gathered to a head. The King's uncles meant to
continue governing England, with the King as their ward, as long as
they could; he meant to relieve himself of this guardianship, and them
of their heads, as soon as he was able. War seemed inevitable, the air
was thick with portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the
judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of imperilled England
to concern herself about a peasant's toothache?

Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember this quiet and amiable
period of his life, and to wonder over the man that he had been
through this queer while. Embittered and suspicious she had found him,
noted for the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination to
bridle; and she had, against his nature, made Maudelain see that every
person is at bottom lovable, and that human vices are but the stains
of a traveller midway in a dusty journey; and had incited the priest
no longer to do good for his soul's health, but simply for his
fellow's benefit.

In place of that mons