"You have, I trust, much happiness in store for you; and when the sharpness of your affliction is worn off, you will view your condition in a more cheering light." "Impossible!" she cried, mournfully.

"Hope is wholly extinct in my breast.

But I will not contest the point.

Is not Sir Everard Digby with you ?" "He is not, daughter," replied Garnet, "and I will explain to you wherefore.

Soon after your departure yesterday, the mansion we occupied at Holt was attacked by a band of soldiers, headed by Miles Topcliffe, one of the most unrelenting of our persecutors; and though they were driven off with some loss, yet, as there was every reason to apprehend, they would return with fresh force, Sir Everard judged it prudent to retreat; and accordingly he and his friends, with all their attendants, except those he has sent with me, have departed for Buckinghamshire." "Where, then, is Father Oldcorne ?" inquired Viviana.
"Alas! daughter," rejoined Garnet, "I grieve to say he is a prisoner.
Imprudently exposing himself during the attack, he was seized and carried off by Topcliffe and his myrmidons." "How true is the saying that misfortunes never come single!" sighed Viviana.