'"Oh, noble Sir Philip, never did man attain hurt so honourably or so
valiantly as you," weeping over him as if he had been his mistress.

'"I have done no more," he said, "than God and England claimed of me. My
life could not be better spent than in this day's service." I ordered my
barge to be prepared, and, the surgeons doing all they could to stanch the
blood, Philip was conveyed to Arnhem. He rests now in the house of one
Madam Gruithuissens, and all that love and care can do, dear niece, shall
be done by his and your sorrowing uncle,

LEICESTER.

'Pardon this penmanship. It is writ in haste, and not without tears, for
verily, I seem now to know, as never before, what the world and his kindred
possess in Philip Sidney.

R. L.

'To my dear niece, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, from before Zutphen, on the
twenty-second day of September, in the year of grace 1586. Enclosed in
despatch to the Right Honourable Sir Francis Walsingham.'

* * * * *

When Lucy had finished reading, the Countess took the letter, and rising,
left the room, bidding Will to remain behind.

Mistress Crawley, who was waiting in the corridor to be called in with
cordials and burnt feathers, was amazed to see her lady pass out with a
faint, sad smile putting aside the offered cordial.

'Nay, good Crawley, my hurt lies beyond the cure of aught but that of Him
who has stricken me. I would fain be alone.'

'Dear heart!' Mistress Crawley exclaimed, as she bustled into the room
where Lucy still sat motionless, while Will, with childlike intolerance of
suspense, ran off to seek someone who would speak, and not sit dumb and
white like Lucy. 'Dear heart! I daresay it is not a death-wound. Sure, if
there is a God in heaven, He will spare the life of a noble knight like Sir
Philip. He will live,' Mistress Crawley said, taking a sudden turn from
despair and fear to unreasonable hope. 'He will live, and we shall see him
riding into the Court ere long, brave and hearty, so don't pine like that,
Mistress Lucy; and I don't, for my part, know what right you have to take
on like this; have a sup of cordial, and let us go about our business.'

But Lucy turned away her head, and still sat with folded hands where Lady
Pembroke had left her.

Mistress Crawley finished by emptying the silver cup full of cordial
herself, and, pressing her hand to her heart, said,--'She felt like to
swoon at first, but it would do no good to