It was a "high day" for Kitty Clive when, in her mistress's mounted retinue, she drew the rein at the gates of the noble mansion which overlooked her dear native village; for the courtly scenes of London, amidst which she had been living, were not exactly in unison with her feelings. When at Swithland she could run to the motherly Mistress Norton with all her joys and sorrows, and find ready sympathy and wise counsel; and when she had leisure she could wander through the familiar wood-paths, and pluck the sweet wild flowers. Moreover, her beloved Lady Jane would be at Bradgate, and altogether Kitty thought that the days would be bright indeed, and without a shade of sorrow.

CHAPTER VII.

KITTY'S LOVER.

"Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress's eyebrow."

SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

N her joy at the prospect of returning to
Bradgate, Kitty overlooked the fact that

the marchioness was the dominant spirit of that mansion. Nevertheless, she found to her disappointment that such was the case, and that her ladyship gave full exercise to her prerogative of mistress-ship, if one may so term it, and soon made it plain to her daughter that all close and kindly intercourse between herself and her waitingmaid was at an end.

The return of the Lady Jane was not hailed with much pleasure by her parents, for they were grievously disappointed at the failure of their deeply-laid schemes; and lest we should seem to be speaking harshly, without full warrant, we will

venture to give here a well-worn and certainly wellauthenticated historical anecdote, in which we have the Lady Jane's testimony, in her own words, to the fact that at least she was not treated with parental kindness by her father and mother after her return.

The preceptor of the Princess Elizabeth, Roger Ascham, came one day to Bradgate, and finding that the elder members of the household were in the park, engaged in the refined and intellectual (?) sport of hunting, he made his way to the apartment of the Lady Jane, and found her there reading the "Phædon" of Plato. Astonished, or appearing to be so, that a young girl should prefer dry books to out-of-door sports, he questioned her as to the cause of this taste.

"I wis,” replied she, with a smile, "all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure means."

"And how attained you, madam, to this true knowledge of pleasure?" queried Master Ascham, "and what did chiefly allure you to it, seeing that few women and not many men have arrived at it?"

"I will tell you," was the reply, "and tell you a truth which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me is that He sent me with sharp, severe parents, so gentle a

schoolmaster. When I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go; eat, drink, be merry or sad; be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, or number, even as perfectly as God made the world, or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presented sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs (slaps), and other ways, which I will not name for the honour I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till the time comes when I must go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him; and when I am called from him I fall on weeping, because whatever I do else but learning is full of trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me; and this my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, than in respect of it all other pleasures, in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me.'

In the year 1551 the Marquis of Dorset was promoted to the dukedom of Suffolk, an advancement which increased his wealth, and at the same time drew himself and his family very much from the seclusion of Bradgate to more courtly scenes, and in consequence of some courtly intimacies, several

*Ascham's "Schoolmaster."

long equestrian journeys must needs be performed by the newly-made duchess and her three daughters, which resulted in the serious illness of the Lady Jane.

This illness, brought on by enforced over-exertion, was the cause of much annoyance in the mind of the gentle Master Aylmer, whose refined and constant kindness was always so well appreciated by his affectionate and talented pupil. It is said, too, that Master Haddon, the chaplain of Jane and her two sisters, was also greatly aggrieved to think that the girls should be subjected to so much fatigue, especially as these journeys were performed in the winter-time, and one of them at least, in order that the Lady Frances, then Duchess of Suffolk, might be present at certain Christmas revellings.

The Lady Jane at this time was about fifteen, Kitty Clive was seventeen, and Rowland Norton. about nineteen years of age.

The reader will be aware that after this period we have not many more years of the life of the former to recount ere the last scene arrived-the scene which transported the sweet princess, the firm believer in the precious atonement of Jesus, the loving follower of Him "in whom" she "believed," to His holy presence, there to realize the blessed truth that the "sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory