Hayslope Grange: A Tale of the Civil War
little girl had dried her tears, and both sat with white frightened faces gazing at Maud and their father.

Maud staggered back to her seat and bowed her face in her hands, and the dinner went on in silence among those who cared to eat. Maud and Mary sat with their plates before them, but left the table without tasting anything, and as soon as they could escape went up to their own room.

Here Maud's firmness quite forsook her, and laying her head on Mary's shoulder, she burst into tears, moaning, "Oh, Mary, what shall I do? I cast him off as well."

Mary could not understand her. "I think you ought to be very glad you are not a Drury, to share in his disgrace," she said, with a sigh.

Maud lifted her face, her eyes flashing with indignation. "Glad!" she said; "nay, nay, I wish I were a Drury, that I might go and seek him now. Think of it, Mary; all have cast him off."

"He has disgraced us all," said Mary. "I have heard my father say it was his proudest boast that the Drurys had ever been true to the king and state, and never taken part with any riotous mob, and now Harry has dragged our family honour to the very dust. Everybody will know it soon, and every village wench will pity me because I am the sister of a traitor. I shall never hold up my head again," and Mary burst into tears at the picture of humiliation she had drawn.

"HE HAS DISGRACED US ALL!"

Maud was quite incapable of understanding this self-pity, and seating herself at the little table by the window, she indulged her own self-reproachful thoughts on her conduct of the morning. She had no idea then that his father had treated him so harshly, or she would have been more tender, and her heart was sad as she thought of his words, that he must be true to his conscience.

But her musing was broken in upon by Mary saying, "It is so wicked, so wilful, to rebel against the King."

"But suppose he had to do this, or rebel against his conscience," said Maud, giving some expression to her own thoughts.

Mary started. "What can you mean? prithee, it cannot be right for us to rebel against the King?"

"Certainly not for us," said Maud. "But we are not to make ourselves a conscience to other people; and if Harry sees that serving the King would be wrong——"

"But it cannot be wrong," 
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