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Every soul at Lovell Tower was passionately Lancastrian. To them Henry VI. was The King, and Edward IV. was "the rebel." In the house of the next knight, half a mile away, the conditions were reversed: and the two families, who had been old and firm friends, now passed each other on the road with no notice whatever. Very painful was this state of things to the Lady Idonia, the only sister of four brothers thus placed at variance. Her two younger brothers, Maurice and William, were still on good terms with her, for they were Lancastrians like herself. But the Carew family was one of those which the political earthquake had shattered, and Hugh and Thomas were determined Yorkists. It was the sadder—or should have been,—since the younger Lady Marnell had been educated under the roof of her Uncle Hugh, during the prolonged residence of her parents at the Court of Scotland. Fortunately or unfortunately, Uncle Hugh and Aunt Mabel had contrived to impress themselves on the mind of young Margery in no other character than that of live barricades against the accomplishment of all her wishes. To be otherwise than on speaking terms with them, therefore, was a much smaller calamity to Margery than to her mother. The Lady Idonia used to sigh heavily when their names were mentioned. Yet to keep up the friendship would have been no easy matter. Hugh Carew was granite where his convictions were concerned; and not content with following them himself, he insisted on imposing them on every body who came near him. It would have been in his eyes a matter of principle not to allow his sister or his niece to speak of "the King" or "the rebel," without letting them see that he wilfully misunderstood the allusion. Idonia merely sighed ever this piece of perversity, while yet their intercourse remained unbroken: but Margery was apt to flare up and make an open breach of the peace. It certainly was trying, when she spoke of the King (meaning Henry VI.) as in Scotland, to be reminded in a cold, precise tone, slightly astonished, that she had unaccountably forgotten that His Highness was at Westminster. It is not therefore to be wondered at, if Margery felt the open hostility rather a relief than a burden, while her mother grieved over it in secret.