lace your feet on this roll, and let me
cover them with the haircloth--so; does that suit you?'

The groom was about to take his place on the side of the pillion nearest
the horse's head, when he remembered he had forgotten to fill the powder
flask, for no horseman ever ventured on the Queen's highway without
abundant supply for the musket, which lay across the saddle bow.

The delay caused by this gave Mr Sidney time to say,--

'Heaven grant you may find Mistress Gifford in better case than we fear.
You do well to go to her, and comfort her; commend me to her, and say
Humphrey Ratcliffe has my freely-given permission to scour the country to
find her lost boy. He will do so if he is to be found, and it will be a
double grace if he does, for we may be able to unearth some of these foxy
Jesuits who are lying in wait in every hole and corner.'

Then, as Lucy did not speak, Philip laid his hand gently on hers as he
leaned against the horse, with one arm caressing his old favourite's neck.

'Smile on me before you set off, Mistress Lucy, nor look so doleful. The
clouds will clear away, I doubt not, and you will return to my sister, the
Countess, to be blythe and happy in learning all Mistress Crawley would
fain teach you of handicraft, and still more, all my sister can instruct
you in, for she is ever ready to give out the treasures which she has
stored up in her brain and heart.'

And now the groom appeared, and mounted to his place, and still Lucy could
not find any words.

'God speed you in your journey,' was Philip's good-bye, and Lucy could only
murmur a few half-inaudible words, as she looked down on the true knight
who filled her girlish dreams, and to whom there never was, and never could
be, any rival.

And as the steady-going Prince footed it with even steps over the stones,
and trotted along the somewhat rugged roads on the way to Tunbridge, Lucy
tormented herself with her folly in never telling Mr Sidney in so many
words how grateful she was to him.

'Fool that I was!' she thought. 'And he so tender and careful for my
comfort. What a poor idiot I must have seemed! Yet, sure, I must find
favour in his eyes, or he would not have wrapt the cloth so deftly round my
feet. Oh, is he not noble and beautiful beyond all men who ever lived? I
hear them say the Queen calls him "her Philip" and "her bright gem," and
that he is the wisest statesman, and grandest poet and finest scholar of
the age, and yet he is not t