left Robin in charge of Dr
Thorpe,--"or Dr Thorpe in charge of Robin, as it may please thee to take
it. I know not when they will be back. In all my life did I never see
a man so unweary and unwearyable as that our old friend."

"And what hast thou seen, Jack?" said Isoult.

"Three very fine ladies and three very fine gentlemen," answered he;
"with a great many more ladies and gentlemen, not quite so fine."

"What ware they?" asked Kate.

"Was the King there?" Isoult inquired.

"What ware they, Moppet?" said John, taking up Kate; "why, many a yard
of cloth of gold, and satin, and velvet, and I cannot tell thee what
else. They were as fine as ever the tailor could make them.--Ay, dear
heart, the King was there."

But his voice changed, so that Isoult could read in it a whole volume of
bad news.

"Is he sick, then, as we heard?" she asked.

"Hardly," he answered in a low voice, "say rather dying."

"O Jack!" cried she.

"O Isoult, if thou hadst seen him!" said he, his voice quivering. "The
fierce, unnatural radiance in those soft, meek grey eyes, as though
there were a fire consuming him within; the sickly dead-white colour of
his face, with burning red spots on the cheeks; the languor and disease
of his manner, ever leaning his head upon his hand, as though he could
scarce bear it up; and when he smiled--I might scantly endure to look on
him. And above all this, the hollow cough that ever brake the silence,
and seemed well-nigh to tear his delicate frame in twain--it was enough
to make a strong man weep."

"But tell me all about it!" cried Kate, laying her little hand upon her
father's face to make him turn round to her; "I want to know all about
it. How old are these great ladies? and what are they like to? and what
ware they? Was it blue, or red, or green?"

John turned to her with a smile, and his manner changed again.

"What a little queen art thou!" said he. "Well, I must needs strive to
content thy majesty. How old are the ladies that were married? Well,
the Lady Jane is the eldest, and she is, I take it, sixteen or seventeen
years of age. She looketh something elder than her years, yet rather in
her grave, quiet manner than in her face. Then her sister the Lady
Katherine is nigh fourteen. And the years of my Lady Katherine Dudley I
know not. _Item_, what are they like unto? That was the next question,
methinks."

"Ay," replied Kate. "Which is the nicest?"

"Which thou shouldst