back to me my
mother's, the last time she greeted my father!'

'To your fantasy, not your memory, John! You were a mere babe at her
death.'

'Of five years,' said Bedford. 'That face--that cough--have brought all
back--ay, the yearning look when my father was absent, and the pure rosy
fairness that Harry and Tom cited so fiercely against one who would have
told them how sick to death she was. I mind me too, that when our
grandame of Hereford made us motherless children over to our grandsire of
Lancaster, it was with a warning that Harry had the tender lungs of the
Bohuns, and needed care. One deadly sickness he had at Kenilworth, when
my father was ridden for post-haste. My mind misgave me throughout this
weary siege; but his service held me fast at home, and I trusted that you
would watch over him.'

'A man like him is ill to guide,' said James; 'but he is more himself now
than he has been for months, and a few weeks' quiet with his wife will
restore him. But what is this?' he proceeded in his turn; 'why is the
Lady Joan not here?'

'How can I tell? It was no fault of mine. I even got a prim warning
that it became me not to meddle about her ladies, and I doubted what
slanders you might hear if I were seen asking your Nightingale for a
token.'

'Have you none! Good John, I know you have.'

John smiled his ironical smile, produced from the pouch at his girdle a
small packet bound with rose-coloured silk, and said: 'The Nightingale
hath a plume, you see, and saith, moreover, that her knight hath done his
devoir passably, but that she yet looks to see him send some captive
giant to her feet. So, Sir Knight, I hope your poor dwarf hath acquitted
him well in your chivalrous jargon.'

James smiled and coloured with pleasure; the fantastic message was not
devoid of reality in the days when young imaginative spirits tried to
hide the prose of war and policy in a bright mist of romantic fancy; nor
was he ashamed to bend his manly head in reverence to, and even press to
his lips, his lady's first love-letter, in the very sight of the
satirical though sympathizing Bedford, of whom he eagerly asked of the
fair Joan's health and welfare, and whether she were flouted by Queen
Catherine.

'No more than is the meed of her beauty,' said Bedford. 'Sister Kate
likes not worship at any shrine save one. Look at our suite: our
knights--yea, our very grooms are picked for their comeliness; to wit
that great feather-pate