148 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
the sinking sun flashed redly upon the carved 
escutcheon of her ancestors which surmounted the 
gates. Phoebe stooped down to pick up one of the 
Snowdrops which her beautiful mistress had un¬ 
consciously dropped, and, presenting her with it, 
said, “ Take heart, my dear lady; this flower is the 
emblem of Hope, and something tells me that you 
will yet live to see happier days.” The Lady Ellen 
took the proffered flower, smiling faintly through 
her tears as she thanked her attendant, then 
threaded her way in the direction of the thatched 
grange, in which the honest farmer’s wife lived, who 
had nursed her in her infancy. 
Although General Marchmont had risen to such 
eminence in the Parliamentary army, it was neither 
by adhering to the strict Puritanic habits of the 
Roundheads, rendering himself a tool in the hands 
of Cromwell, nor a time-server to any of his emis¬ 
saries ; for he was one of those who drew the sword 
through conscientious motives against King Charles, 
and his own bravery had called forth the thanks of 
Parliament while his praises had been recorded 
before the face of the whole army. The mansion 
which he inherited through a long line of ancestors 
had, with all it contained, been burnt to the ground 
by the Royalists, during the commencement of the 
wars which so long desolated England. Even the 
very woods which before sheltered it had been cut 
