of Providence that her two promising sons had been in any way mixed up in it.
"If I had only kept them with me here in England, they would have been safe!" she moaned.
It was not very long since Mrs. Hewling had been left a widow, in affluent circumstances indeed, but with a large family to bring up. She had two most promising sons, Benjamin and William, the first twenty-one and the second close upon nineteen years of age, and Benjamin's twin-sister Hannah was a beautiful girl of much promise, who, at this crisis of her mother's life, was acting as her chief support and helper. There were several little sisters, scarcely more than children; but the intermediate sons had died in infancy, and the chords of the mother's heart seemed to twine themselves about Benjamin and William in a fashion which made their present perilous situation a thing that could hardly be borne by her.
And the bitterest thought of all was that had she only kept the boys with her in London after their father's death, instead of letting them go to Holland, to see something of the world and complete their education, all this misery might have been spared.
Adverse as the citizens of London were to many of the methods and opinions of the King, still there was no desire at present to get rid of him by any
