harvest, no velvet lawn, no Palladian villa, no flower of art and
culture--in a word, no progress, as we call it--however the shade of
Thoreau may implacably smile. So when the Lady Cavaliere whispered
from under her beaded veil, "Don't speak of it, but I am tired to
death of reformers," it was only the artist's impatience of the
ploughman; it was Rupert and his men not only sneering at Praise God
Bare-bones, and singing their mock prayer in the Lenten litany,

"That it may please thee to suppose
Our actions are as good as those
That gull the people through the nose,"

but heartily believing Cromwell and his men to be canting hypocrites.

And yet the Lady Cavaliere is too well informed not to know that it
was not the silken chivalry who planted the king's standard and
defended it with all heroism, in whose praise the poets sang, who are
still the heroes of romance, and whose life had the charm of grace and
ease and accomplishment and _savoir faire_, that saved England and a
great deal more. The lady has sauntered through the palaces where the
Vandyck portrait of the king hangs upon the walls, the handsome,
melancholy Stuart. She looked at it secretly, perhaps, with something
of the same feeling that men think of the hapless Mary, as we call
her. What a gentleman! how refined! how sad! how agreeable to the
fancy! Yes, dear lady, and what a liar! how false-hearted! who would
have had his own foolish way whatever happened to other men! He would
have gratified your taste to the utmost; you would never have said
under your breath, "How I hate reformers!" he would have, perhaps,
carried your imagination and taste against your conscience and
judgment. And it is for that very reason--because taste and