ng. "It is my window," whispered
Sophia, and began to weep in the darkness, without knowing why; for she
was not miserable in the least, but, on the contrary, very, very happy.
They listened, hand in hand, by a fountain on the terrace. Through the
windows they could see the Papal legate chatting at table with the King,
Sophia's father, and the Chancellor hobnobbing with the Cardinal
Archbishop. Only the Queen of Ysselmonde sat at the table with her
wrists on the arms of her throne and her eyes looking out into the
darkness, as though she caught some whisper of the bird's song. But the
children knew that he sang for them, not for her; for he told of all the
adventures of the day, and he told not as I am telling them, but so
beautifully that the heart ached to hear. Yet his song was of two words
only. "Young--young--young! Love love--love!"--the same words over and
over.

A courtier came staggering out from the banqueting-hall, and the bird
flew away. The children standing by the fountain watched him as he
found the water and dipped his face in it, with a groan. He was
exceedingly drunk; but as he lifted his head he caught sight of them in
the moonlight and excused himself.

"In your Highnesses' honour," he assured them: "'been doing my best."

"Poor man!" said Sophia. "But how loyal!"

ENGLAND!

At Madeira seven of us were added to the first-class passengers of the
_Cambuscan_, homeward bound from Cape Town; and even so the company made
a poor muster in the saloon, which required a hundred and seventy feet
of hurricane-deck for covering. Those were days--long before the South
African War, before the Jameson Raid even--when every ship carried out a
load of miners for the Transvaal, and returned comparatively empty,
though as a rule with plenty of obviously rich men and be-diamonded
ladies.

But every tide has its backwash; and it so happened that the _Cambuscan_
held as many second and third-class passengers as she could stow.
They were--their general air proclaimed it--the failures of South
African immigration; men and women who had gone out too early and given
up the struggle just when the propitious moment arrived. Seediness
marked the second-class; the third-class came from all parts, from the
Cape to Pietermaritzburg, but they might have conspired to assemble on
the _Cambuscan_ as a protest against high hopes and dreams of a promised
land. The protest, let me add, was an entirely passive one.