Her son had brought her stories of the life at Whitehall, terrible pictures
of iniquity, conveyed in the scathing words of one who sat apart, in a
humble lodging, where for him the light of day came not, and heard with
disgust and horror of that wave of debauchery which had swept over the city
he loved, since the triumph of the Royalists. And Lady Warner had heard the
words of Milton, and had listened with a reverence as profound as if the
blind poet had been the prophet of Israel, alone in his place of hiding,
holding himself aloof from an idolatrous monarch and a wicked people.
And now her son had brought her this fair girl, upon whom he had set his
foolish hopes, a Papist, and the sister of a woman whose ways were the
ways of--! A favourite scriptural substantive closed the sentence in Lady
Warner's mind.
No; it might not be. Whatever power she had over her son must be used
against his Papistical syren. She would treat her with courtesy, show her
house and dairy, and there an end. And so they repaired to the offices,
with Papillon running backwards and forwards as they went along, exclaiming
and questioning, delighted with the shining oak floors and great oak chests
in the corridor, and the armour in the hall, where, as the sacred and
central object, hung the breastplate Sir George Warner wore when he fell at
Hopton Heath, dinted by sword and pike, as the enemy's horse rode him down
in the _melee_.
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