her promise, Anne was down in time to take leave of Capper. They
stood together for a moment on the steps before parting. Her hand in his,
he looked straight into her quiet eyes.

"You're not grieving any, Lady Carfax?"

"No," she said.

"I guess you're right," said Maurice Capper gravely. "We make our little
bids for happiness, but it helps one to remember that the issue lies
with God."

She gave him a smile of understanding. "'He knows about it all--He
knows--He knows,'" she quoted softly. And Capper went his way, taking
with him the memory of a woman who still ploughed her endless furrow, but
with a heart at peace.

CHAPTER XX

THE PROMOTION OF THE QUEEN'S JESTER

"My!" said Mrs. Errol. "Isn't he just dear?"

There was a cooing note in her deep voice. She sat in the Dower House
garden with her grandson bolt upright upon her knees, and all the birds
of June singing around her.

"Isn't he dear, Anne?" she said.

Anne, who was dangling a bunch of charms for the baby's amusement,
stooped and kissed the sunny curls.

"He's a lord of creation," she said. "And he knows it already. I never
saw such an upright morsel in my life."

"Lucas was like that," said Mrs. Errol softly. "He was just the loveliest
baby in the U.S.A. Everyone said so. Dot dearie, I'm sort of glad you
called him Luke."

"So am I, mater dearest. And he's got Luke's eyes, hasn't he now? Bertie
said so from the very beginning." Eagerly Dot leaned from her chair to
turn her small son's head to meet his grandmother's scrutiny. "I'd rather
he were like Luke than anyone else in the world," she said. "It isn't
treason to Bertie to say so, for he wants it too. Where is Bertie, I
wonder? He had to go to town, but he promised to be back early for his
boy's first birthday-party. It's such an immense occasion, isn't it?"

Her round face dimpled in the way Bertie most loved. She rose and slipped
a hand through Anne's arm.

"Let's go and look for him. I know he can't be long now. The son of the
house likes having his granny to himself. He never cries with her."

They moved away together through the sunlit garden, Dot chattering gaily
as her fashion was about nothing in particular while Anne walked beside
her in sympathetic silence. Anne was never inattentive though there were
some who deemed her unresponsive.

But as they neared the gate Dot's volubility quite suddenly died down.
She plucked a white rose, to fill in the pause and fastened