ia at once.

"Will Heliet go too?" asked Clarice, softly.

"Oh, no; Heliet never leaves Oakham," responded Olympias.

Mistress Underdone looked kindly at Clarice. "No, Heliet will not go,"
she said. "She cannot ride, poor heart." And the mother sighed, as if
she felt the prospective pain of separation.

"But there will be dozens of other maidens," said Elaine. "There are
plenty of girls in the world beside Heliet."

Clarice was beginning to think there hardly were for her.

"Oh, thou dost not know what thou wilt see at Westminster!" exclaimed
Elaine. "The Lord King, and the Lady Queen, and all the Court; and the
Abbey, with all its riches, and ever so many maids and gallants. It is
delicious beyond description, when the Lady is away visiting some
shrine, and she does that nearly every day."

Roisia's "Hush!" had come too late.

"I pray you say that again, my mistress!" said the well-known voice of
the Lady Margaret in the doorway. "Nay, I will have it.--Fetch me the
rod, Agatha.--Now then, minion, what saidst? Thou caitiff giglot! If I
had thee not in hand, that tongue of thine should bring thee to ruin.
What saidst, hussy?"

And Elaine had to repeat the unlucky words, with the birch in prospect,
and immediately afterwards in actuality.

"I will lock thee up when I go visiting shrines!" said the Countess with
her last stroke. "Agatha, remember when we are at Westminster that I
have said so."

"Ay, Lady," observed Mistress Underdone, composedly.

And the Lady Margaret, throwing down the birch, stalked away, and left
the sobbing Elaine to resume her composure at her leisure.

In a vaulted upper chamber of the Palace of Westminster, on a bright
morning in June, four persons were seated. Three, who were of the
nobler sex, were engaged in converse; the last, a lady, sat apart with
her embroidery in modest silence. They were near relatives, for the men
were respectively husband, brother-in-law, and uncle of the woman, and
they were the most prominent members of the royal line of England, with
one who did not belong to it.

Foremost of the group was the King. He was foremost in more senses than
one, for, as is well known, Edward the First, like Saul, was higher than
any of his people. Moreover, he was as spare as he was tall, which made
him look almost gigantic. His forehead was large and broad, his
features handsome and regular, but marred by that perpetual droop in his
left eyelid which he had