is to distinguish the left hand glove from the right. But if thou
wouldst have my forgiveness, say something of comfort to my poor
Henry. There he sits, confounded and dismayed with all the preachment
thou hast heaped together; and he, to whom a trumpet sound was
like the invitation to a feast, is struck down at the sound of a
child's whistle."

The armourer, indeed, while he heard the lips that were dearest
to him paint his character in such unfavourable colours, had laid
his head down on the table, upon his folded arms, in an attitude
of the deepest dejection, or almost despair.

"I would to Heaven, my dearest father," answered Catharine, "that
it were in my power to speak comfort to Henry, without betraying
the sacred cause of the truths I have just told you. And I may--
nay, I must have such a commission," she continued with something
that the earnestness with which she spoke and the extreme beauty
of her features caused for the moment to resemble inspiration.

"The truth of Heaven," she said, in a solemn tone, "was never
committed to a tongue, however feeble, but it gave a right to that
tongue to announce mercy, while it declared judgment. Arise, Henry
--rise up, noble minded, good, and generous, though widely mistaken
man. Thy faults are those of this cruel and remorseless age, thy
virtues all thine own."

While she thus spoke, she laid her hand upon the smith's arm, and
extricating it from under his head by a force which, however gentle,
he could not resist, she compelled him to raise towards her his
manly face, and the eyes into which her expostulations, mingled