en she went, and
think of her much. Would it have been a sweet or a bitter thing to have
felt himself pledged to a daughter of England? He felt that he could not
tell; but at least the decision was made now, and his words could not be
recalled.

Just ere the sun set that summer's day there came down the stone
corridor which led to his room the patter of little feet, and he leaned
up on his elbow with brightening eyes as the door opened and little
Gertrude came dancing in.

"I thought I was to have been married to you, Wendot, before we went
away," she said, looking into his face with the most trusting expression
in her soft dark eyes; "but father says you will come to marry me some
day at the king's court. Perhaps that will be better, for I should like
Eleanor and Joanna to see you. They would like you so, and you would
like them. But do come soon, Wendot. I do so like you; and I shall want
to show you to them all. And I have broken my gold coin in two -- the
one the king gave me once. I got the armourer to do it, and to make a
hole in each half. You must wear one half round your neck, and I will
wear the other. And that will be almost the same as being married, will
it not? And you will never forget me, will you?"

Wendot let her hang the half of the coin round his neck by a silken
thread, strange new thoughts crowding into his mind as he felt her soft
little hands about him. Suddenly he clasped them in both of his and
pressed warm kisses upon them. Gertrude threw her arms about his neck in
a childish paroxysm of affection, saying as she did so between her kisses:

"Now, it's just like being husband and wife; and we shall never forget
one another -- never."

CHAPTER V. THE KING'S CHILDREN.

"Dynevor --did you say Dynevor? O Eleanor, it must be he!"

A tall, slim, fair-faced maiden, with a very regal mien, looked up
quickly from an embroidery frame over which she was bending, and glanced
from the eager, flushed face of the younger girl who stood beside her to
that of a tall and stalwart English youth, who appeared to be the bearer
of a piece of news, and asked in her unconsciously queenly way:

"What is it, Sir Godfrey, that you have told this impetuous child, to
have set her in such a quiver of excitement?"

"Only this, gracious lady, that certain youthful chieftains from the
south have come hither to Rhuddlan to pay their homage to your royal
father. In his absence at Chester they have been lodged