St. George and St. Michael | Page 5

taking a step nearer,
to which she responded by another backward ere she replied.
'I would know whom you choose to serve--whether God or Satan;
whether you are of those who would set at nought the laws of the
land----'
'Insist on their fulfilment, they say, by king as well as people'
interrupted Richard.
'They would tear their mother in pieces----'
'Their mother!' repeated Richard, bewildered.
'Their mother, the church,' explained Dorothy.
'Oh!' said Richard. 'Nay, they would but cast out of her the wolves in
sheep's clothing that devour the lambs.'
The girl was silent. Anger glowed on her forehead and flashed from her
grey eyes. She stood one moment, then turned to leave him, but half
turned again to say scornfully--
'I must go at once to my mother! I knew not I had left her with such a
wolf as master Herbert is like to prove!'

'Master Herbert is no bishop, Dorothy!'
'The bishops, then, are the wolves, master Heywood?' said the girl, with
growing indignation.
'Dear Dorothy, I am but repeating what I hear. For my own part, I know
little of these matters. And what are they to us if we love one another?'
'I tell you I am a child no longer,' flamed Dorothy.
'You were seventeen last St. George's Day, and I shall be nineteen next
St. Michael's.'
'St. George for merry England!' cried Dorothy.
'St. Michael for the Truth!' cried Richard.
'So be it. Good-bye, then,' said the girl, going.
'What DO you mean, Dorothy?' said Richard; and she stood to hear, but
with her back towards him, and, as it were, hovering midway in a pace.
'Did not St. Michael also slay his dragon? Why should the knights part
company? Believe me, Dorothy, I care more for a smile from you than
for all the bishops in the church, or all the presbyters out of it.'
'You take needless pains to prove yourself a foolish boy, Richard; and
if I go not to my mother at once, I fear I shall learn to despise
you--which I would not willingly.'
'Despise me! Do you take me for a coward then, Dorothy?'
'I say not that. I doubt not, for the matter of swords and pistols, you are
much like other male creatures; but I protest I could never love a man
who preferred my company to the service of his king.'
She glided into the alley and sped along its vaulted twilight, her white
dress gleaming and clouding by fits as she went.
The youth stood for a moment petrified, then started to overtake her,
but stood stock-still at the entrance of the alley, and followed her only
with his eyes as she went.
When Dorothy reached the house, she did not run up to her room that
she might weep unseen. She was still too much annoyed with Richard
to regret having taken such leave of him. She only swallowed down a
little balloonful of sobs, and went straight into the parlour, where her
mother and Mr. Herbert still sat, and resumed her seat in the bay
window. Her heightened colour, an occasional toss of her head
backwards, like that with which a horse seeks ease from the bearing-
rein, generally followed by a renewal of the attempt to swallow
something of upward tendency, were the only signs of her

discomposure, and none of them were observed by her mother or her
guest. Could she have known, however, what feelings had already
begun to rouse themselves in the mind of him whose boyishness was an
offence to her, she would have found it more difficult to keep such
composure.
Dorothy's was a face whose forms were already so decided that, should
no softening influences from the central regions gain the ascendancy,
beyond a doubt age must render it hard and unlovely. In all the
roundness and freshness of girlhood, it was handsome rather than
beautiful, beautiful rather than lovely. And yet it was strongly attractive,
for it bore clear indication of a nature to be trusted. If her grey eyes
were a little cold, they were honest eyes, with a rare look of
steadfastness; and if her lips were a little too closely pressed, it was
clearly from any cause rather than bad temper. Neither head, hands, nor
feet were small, but they were fine in form and movement; and for the
rest of her person, tall and strong as Richard was, Dorothy looked
further advanced in the journey of life than he.
She needed hardly, however, have treated his indifference to the
politics of the time with so much severity, seeing her own acquaintance
with and interest in them dated from that same afternoon, during which,
from lack of other employment, and the weariness of a long morning of
slow, dismal rain,