ing on his black serge bachelor's gown and hood of
rabbit's fur such as he wore at Oxford, looking, as Patrick declared, no
better than a begging scholar. But Malcolm had made up his mind that if
he appeared before Esclairmonde at all it should be in no other guise;
and thus it was that he rode like a black spot in the midst of the
cavalcade, bright with the colours of Nevil and of Montagu, and was
marshalled up the broad stairs by the silver wand of the seneschal.

Lord Montagu had gone back to the wars; so the family at home consisted
of the grand, stately, and distant old Countess of Salisbury, and her
young grand-daughter, the Lady Montagu, with her three months' old son.
Each had an almost royal suite of well-born dames and damsels in
attendance, among whom the Demoiselle de Luxemburg alone was on an
equality with the mistresses of the house. Even Queen Catherine's
presence-chamber had hardly equalled the grand baronial ceremony of the
hall, where sat the three ladies in the midst of their circle of
attendants, male and female ranged on opposite sides; and old Lady
Salisbury knew the exact number of paces that it befitted her and Lady
Montagu to advance to receive the royal infusion of blood that flowed in
the veins of my Lord of Glenuskie. And yet it was the cheek, and not the
hand, that were offered in salutation by both ladies, as well as by
Esclairmonde. Malcolm, however, only durst kneel on one knee and salute
her hand, and felt himself burning with crimson as the touch and voice
brought back those longings that, as James had said, proved him human
still. He was almost glad that etiquette required him to hand the aged
Countess to her seat and to devote his chief attention to her.

Punctilio reigned supreme in such a house as this. Nowhere had Malcolm
seen such observance of ceremony, save in the court of the Duke of
Burgundy, and there it was modified by the presence of rough and ready
warriors; but an ancient dame like Lady Salisbury thought it both the due
and the safeguard of her son's honour, and exacted it rigorously of all
who approached her.

Alice of Montagu had the sweet fragile look of a young mother about her,
but her frightened fawn air was gone; she was in her home, had found her
place, and held it with a simple dignity of her own, quite ready to ripen
into all the matronly authority, without the severe formality, of her
grand-dame.

She treated Malcolm with a gentle smiling courtesy such