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"'Tis strange gear," the Lady Idonia would sometimes say, "that men cannot think alike."

"Nay, fair Sister, why should they so?" was her brother William's answer. "This were tame world if no man saw by his own eyes, but all after a pattern."

"That were well, Ida," replied the graver Maurice, "could all men see through God's eyes."

"Aye, and who shall dare say how He looketh on these matters?" rejoined William.

"Know we not that?" said Maurice. "'The righteous Lord delighteth in righteousness; His countenance beholdeth equity.'"[#]

[#] Psalm xi. 8.

"On which side is the equity?" asked his brother with a shrug of his shoulders. "Somewhat scant on both, as methinks. My Lords of Warwick and Somerset are scarce they which, before giving battle, should look through a speculation glass[#] to find the righteousness of the matter."

[#] Magnifier.

"Perhaps it were hardly so small as to need the same," was Maurice's dry answer.

"Nay, fair Uncle William, but I cry you mercy!" broke in Margery. "It seems me you be but half-hearted toward our good King. Surely his, and none other, is the cause of right and justice."

"Gramercy, Madge! I am well assured I never said they lay with that rebel," returned her uncle, laughing.

"Methinks," said Maurice quietly, "that King David was the wisest, which committed his cause unto God. Never, truly, had king so clear and perfect title as he. But we find not that he laid siege to King Saul, in order to come by it the sooner."

"Dear heart! prithee go tell that to the Queen," said William, still laughing. "Such reasoning were right after the King's heart."

"The Queen fights not for herself," responded Maurice. "It is easier to trust our own lot in God's hands, than the lot of them we love most. But mind ye not, Will and Ida, what our Philip were wont to say—'They that God keepeth be the best kept'?"

William made no reply. He was silenced by the allusion to the dead brother, on whom the Carews looked much as those around them did upon the saints.