n you always do as well
for us all, we can forgive you, Pierre! The courtiers have cried her up
and cried her up, till your pretty savage of the north sea is like to
become the first lady of the land! Sir John comes home with your letter
to me--boy, the smelling-salts!--so!--and I say to him, 'Sir John, take
the story to His Royal Highness!' Good lack, Pierre, no sooner hath the
Duke of York heard the tale than off he goes with it to King Charles!
His Majesty hath an eye for a pretty baggage. Oh, I promise you, Pierre,
you have done finely for us all!"

And the lady must simper and smirk and tap Pierre Radisson with her fan,
with a glimmer of ill-meaning through her winks and nods that might have
brought the blush to a woman's cheeks in Commonwealth days.

"Madame," cried Pierre Radisson with his eyes ablaze, "that sweet child
came to no harm or wrong among our wilderness of savages! An she come to
harm in a Christian court, by Heaven, somebody'll answer me for't!"

"Lackaday! Hoighty-toighty, Pierre! How you stamp! The black-eyed
monkey hath been named maid of honour to Queen Catherine! How much
better could we have done for her?"

"Maid of honour to the lonely queen?" says Radisson. "That is well!"

"She is ward of the court till a husband be found for her," continues
Lady Kirke.

"There will be plenty willing to be found," says Pierre Radisson, looking
me wondrous straight in the eye.

"Not so sure--not so sure, Pierre! We catch no glimpse of her nowadays;
but they say young Lieutenant Blood o' the Tower shadows the court
wherever she is----"

"A well-dressed young man?" adds Radisson, winking at me.

"And carries himself with a grand air," amplifies my lady, puffing out
her chest, "but then, Pierre, when it comes to the point, your pretty
wench hath no dower--no property----"

"Heaven be praised for that!" burst from my lips.

At which there was a sudden silence, followed by sudden laughter to my
confusion.

"And so Master Stanhope came seeking the bird that had flown," twitted
Radisson's mother-in-law. "Faugh--faugh--to have had the bird in his
hand and to let it go! But--ta-ta!" she laughed, tapping my arm with her
fan, "some one else is here who keeps asking and asking for Master
Stanhope. Boy," she ordered, "tell thy master's guest to come down!"

Two seconds later entered little Rebecca of Boston Town. Blushing pink
as apple-blossoms, dressed demurely as of old, with her glances pl