Part 17 (2/2)

(Softly, at the door.) Bridget.

_Bridget_ (from the next room): Yes, mother.

_Elizabeth:_ Can you come? I'm going now.

_Bridget:_ Yes.

(She comes in and ELIZABETH goes.)

_Bridget:_ Shall I read, grandmother?

_Mrs. Cromwell:_ Yes, just a little. Mr. Milton was reading to me this afternoon. Your father asked him to come. He has begun a very good poem, about Eden and the fall of man. He read me some of it. He writes extremely well. I think I should like to hear something by that young Mr. Marvell. He copies them out for me--you'll find them in that book, there. There's one about a garden. Just two stanzas of it. I have marked them.

_Bridget_ (reading):

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays, And their incessant labours see Crown'd from some single herb or tree, Whose short and narrow-verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all the flowers and trees do close To weave the garlands of repose.

And then this one?

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find; Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that's made To a green thought in a green shade.

_Mrs. Cromwell:_ Yes. Far other worlds, and other seas. I wish your father would come.

I want to go to sleep, and you never know.

_Bridget:_ I think father is coming now.

(CROMWELL comes in. He wears plain civilian clothes.)

_Cromwell:_ Well, mother dear.

(He kisses her.)

_Mrs. Cromwell:_ I'm glad you have come, my son. Though you are very busy, I'm sure.

_Cromwell:_ Is there anything I can do?

_Mrs. Cromwell:_ No, thank you. What date is this?

_Cromwell:_ The second of November.

_Mrs. Cromwell:_ It's nearly a year since they made you Protector, then.

_Cromwell:_ Yes. I wonder.

_Mrs. Cromwell:_ You need not, son. You were right. There was none other. And you were right not to take a crown.

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