and fostering holy men, wayfarers, and pilgrims, that the girl's
eyes filled within tears as she looked up and said, 'Ah! lady, this is
the life fitted for thee, who can paint it so well. Why have I not a
brother, that you might be Countess of Salisbury, and I a poor little
sister in a nunnery?'

Esclairmonde shook her head. 'Silly child, _petite niaise_, our lots
were fixed by other hands than ours. We will strive each to serve our
God, in the coif or in the veil, in samite or in serge, and He will only
ask which of us has been most faithful, not whether we have lived in
castle or in cloister.'

Little had Esclairmonde expected to hear the greeting with which the
Countess received her, breaking out into peals of merriment as she told
her of the choice destiny in store for her, to be wedded to the little
lame Scot, pretending to read her a grave lecture on the consequences of
the advances she had made to him.

Esclairmonde was not put out of countenance; in fact, she did not think
the Countess in earnest, and merely replied with a smile that at least
there was less harm in Lord Malcolm than in the suitors at home.

Jaqueline clapped her hands and cried, 'Good tidings, Clairette. I'll
never forgive you if you make me lose my emerald carcanet! So the arrow
was winged, after all. She prefers him--her heart is touched by the
dainty step.'

'Madame!' entreated Esclairmonde, with agitation; 'at least, infirmity
should be spared.'

'It touches her deeply!' exclaimed the Duchess. 'Ah! to see her in the
mountains teaching the wild men to say their Aye, and to wear _culottes_,
the little prince interpreting for her, as King James told us in his
story of the saint his ancestor.'

Raillery about Malcolm had been attempted before, but never so
pertinaciously; and Esclairmonde heeded it not at all, till James himself
sought her out, and, within all his own persuasive grace, told her that
he was rejoiced to hear from Madame of Hainault that she had spoken
kindly of his youthful kinsman, for whose improvement he was sure he had
in great measure to thank her.

Esclairmonde replied composedly, but as one on her guard, that the Sieur
de Glenuskie was a gentle and a holy youth, of a good and toward wit.

'As I saw from the first,' said James, 'when I brought him away from
being crushed among our rude cousins; but, lady, I knew not how the task
of training the boy would be taken out of my hands by your kindness; and
now,