In the prolonged absence of her husband, and the irregularity of tidings, for they came at uncertain as well as wide intervals, her yearnings after her vanished Molly, which had become more patient, returned with all their early vehemence, and she began to brood on the meeting beyond the grave of which her religion waked her hope.  Nor was this all:  her religion itself grew more real; for although there is nothing essentially religious in thinking of the future, although there is more of the heart of religion in the taking of strength from the love of God to do the commonest duty, than in all the longing for a blessed hereafter of which the soul is capable, yet the love of a little child is very close to the love of the great Father; and the loss that sets any affection aching and longing, heaves, as on a wave from the very heart of the human ocean, the labouring spirit up towards the source of life and restoration.  In like manner, from their common love to the child, and their common sense of loss in her death, the hearts of the two women drew closer to each other, and protestant mistress Dorothy was able to speak words of comfort to catholic lady Glamorgan, which the hearer found would lie on the shelf of her creed none the less quietly that the giver had lifted them from the shelf of hers.

One evening, while yet lady Glamorgan had had no news of her husband’s arrival in Ireland, and the bright June weather continued clouded with uncertainty and fear, lady Broughton came panting into her parlour with the tidings that a courier had just arrived at the main entrance, himself pale with fatigue, and his horse white with foam.

‘Alas! alas!’ cried lady Glamorgan, and fell back in her chair, faint with apprehension, for what might not be the message he bore?  Ere Dorothy had succeeded in calming her, the marquis himself came hobbling in, with the news that the king was coming.

‘Is that all?’ said the countess, heaving a deep sigh, while the tears ran down her cheeks.

‘Is that all?’ repeated her father-in-law.  ’How, my lady!  Is there then nobody in all the world but Glamorgan?  Verily I believe thou wouldst turn thy back on the angel Gabriel, if he dared appear before thee without thy Ned under his arm.  Bless the Irish heart!  I never gave thee my Ned that thou shouldst fall down and worship the fellow.’

‘Bear with me, sir,’ she answered faintly.  ’It is but the pain here.  Thou knowest I cannot tell but he lieth at the bottom of the Irish Sea.’

’If he do lie there, then lieth he in Abraham’s bosom, daughter, where I trust there is room for thee and me also.  Thou rememberest how thy Molly said once to thee, ’Madam, thy bosom is not so big as my lord Abraham’s.  What a big bosom my lord Abraham must have!’

Lady Glamorgan laughed.

’Come then—­“to our work alive!” which is now to receive his majesty,’ said the marquis.  ‘My wild Irishwoman—­’