lot marked out for it. The inferior creature,
on the whole, walked very meekly in the path thus swept for it. This
was partly, no doubt, because it was so taught as a religious duty; but
partly, also, because the style of education then given to women left no
room for the mental wings to expand. The bird was supplied with good
seed and fresh water, and the idea of its wanting anything else was
regarded as absurd. Let it sit on the perch and sing in a properly
subdued tone. That it was graciously allowed to sing was enough for any
reasonable bird, and ought to call forth on its part overflowing
gratitude.

Even then, a few of the caged birds were not content to sit meekly on
the perch, but they were eyed askance by the properly behaved ones, and
held up to the unfledged nestlings as sorrowful examples of the
pernicious habit of thinking for one's self. Never was bird less
satisfied to be shut up in a cage than the hapless prisoner in that
manor house, whom the peasants of the neighbourhood knew as the White
Lady. Now and then they caught a glimpse of her at the window of her
chamber, which she insisted on having open, and at which she would stand
sometimes by the hour together, looking sorrowfully out on the blue sky
and the green fields, wherein she might wander no more. A wild bird was
Marguerite of Flanders, in whose veins ran the blood of those untamed
sea-eagles, the Vikings of Denmark; and though bars and wires might keep
her in the cage, to make her content with it was beyond their power.

So thought Norman Hylton, looking up at the white figure visible behind
the bars which crossed the casement of the captive's chamber. He knew
little of her beyond her name.

"Saying thy prayers to the moon, Hylton? or to the White Lady?" asked a
voice behind him.

"Neither, Godfrey. I was marvelling wherefore she is mewed up there.
Dost know?"

"I know she was a full wearisome woman to my Lord Duke her son, and that
he is a jollier man by the acre since she here dwelt."

"Was she his own mother?" asked Norman.

"His own?--ay, for sure; and did him a good turn at the beginning, by
preserving his kingdom for him when he was but a lad."

"And could he find no better reward for her than this?"

"Tut! she sharped [teased, irritated] him, man. He could not have his
will for her."

"Could he ne'er have put up with a little less of it? Or was his will
so much dearer to him than his mother?"

"Dost reckon he lo