d Alice Snowton, "but not deeply."

"You know of her disagreement on certain weighty points with her son,
the Lord Viscount, and how that he is a wicked man, seeking to break
into the pasture of the Lord, and tear down the hedges and destroy the
boundaries thereof; and that in this view he is minded to get his
daughter into his power, to use her as an instrument towards his
temporal elevation?"

"Something of all this we have heard, but not much," said Alice
Snowton.

"And furthermore, I must tell you that overtures were made to me to
aid and assist in the resistance to be offered to this man of sin, and
I did, for deep and wholesome reasons, refuse my assent thereto, and
in this refusal I meant you, my children, to be included; therefore,
whatever propositions may be made to you, to hear, or know, or
receive, or in any manner aid, in the concealment of the Lord
Viscount's daughter--which is at present in charge of an honourable
lady in the north--I charge you, refuse them; they may bring ruin on
an unambitious and humble household, and in no case can do good. We
must fear God ever, and honour the king while he is intrusted with the
sword of power; and family arrangements we must leave to the strong
hands and able head of the great Lady Mallerden herself. In this
caution I know I fulfil the intentions of my honoured friend, your
esteemed uncle, Mr William Snowton, which is concerned with too many
noble families to desire to get into enmity with any--and therefore be
grateful for all the kindness you experience from my honoured lady;
but if perchance she brings her grandchild to the Court, and wishes to
make you of her intimates, inform me thereof; and greatly as it would
be to be regretted, I would break off the custom of your visits to the
noble house, for even that honour may be too dearly purchased by the
enmity of powerful and unscrupulous men--if with sceptres in their
hands, so much the more to be held in awe." And I ended with AEsopus
his fable of the frogs and bulls. This discourse (whereof I had
prepared the heads in the course of the morning) I delivered with the
full force of my elocution, and afterwards I dismissed them, leaving
to my excellent wife the duty of enlarging on the same topic, and also
of giving such advice to Alice, which was now a full-grown young
woman, and very fair to look on, in respect of the young cavaliers she
might see at the great house, particularly the noble lord, the Lord
Lessi