"
"Are you not an Anabaptist now, Reuben?"
"Lord forbid, madam! I have been a member of the Church of England ever
since his Majesty's restoration brought the Vicar to his own again, and
gave us back Christmas Day, and the organ, and the singing-boys."
Angela's life at the Manor was so colourless that the first blossoming of a
familiar flower was an event to note and to remember. Life within convent
walls would have been scarcely more tranquil or more monotonous. Sir John
rode with his hounds three or four times a week, or was about the fields
superintending the farming operations, walking beside the ploughman as he
drove his furrow, or watching the scattering of the seed. Or he was in
the narrow woodlands which still belonged to him, and Angela, taking her
solitary walk at the close of day, heard his axe ringing through the wintry
air.
It was a peaceful, and should have been a pleasant, life, for father and
for daughter. Angela told herself that God had been very good to her in
providing this safe haven from tempestuous seas, this quiet little world,
where the pulses of passion beat not; where existence was like a sleep, a
gradual drifting away of days and weeks, marked only by the changing note
of birds, the deepening umber on the birch, the purpling of beech buds, and
the starry celandine shining out of grassy banks that had so lately been
obliterated under the drifted snow.
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