ur mouth: make a clean breast.'

"'Ah! most gracious liege,' answered Mary, 'the gentlemen have, indeed,
squeezed hands in secret, while we sat at table; and during the
marriage-dance, and at sundry other dances, we kissed each other--seeing
that others did the like. But we could not be alone with them at any
other time; for the bride's mother was always about us, and we lay in
her room. Neither, on the way home, had we much liberty; seeing that the
old secretary, whom her ladyship did send with us, did observe us most
narrowly. But, when the old man did look out of the window of the
carriage, then did the gallants look tenderly upon us, and did kiss
their hands to us."

"'There, now,' said his lordship, turning to his wife, 'you see that the
siege was conducted with vigor. The squeezing of hands was the parley;
the kisses the cannon-balls, sent so freely; and the tender looks the
shells. Depend upon it the storm can not long be delayed. Listen,
darling wife, my heart melts when I bethink me that we also, in our
youth, could not brook a long delay.'

"'Let the drums beat the chamade [parley], and let us show our colors!'
said the duchess; while she threw her arms round her husband's neck, and
stopped his mouth with a kiss. The duke did then ask her, jestingly,
'But which flag shall it be?'

"Hereupon the two young damsels did cry aloud, as with one voice:

"'The white!--most gracious liege!--the white!'

"The duchess could not choose but laugh heartily, and his lordship did
immediately order a servant to mount the tower, and to tie a white
kerchief round one of the lion's necks. His lordship did then sing an
old song the children are wont to sing on May-day:

"'A stately house my lord doth keep,
Two maidens from the windows peep;
A kerchief white the one doth wave,
Because they fain would husbands have.'

And then did depart to put on better apparel, wherein to await the
coming of the wooers. He did also command that all the court ladies and
the courtiers should be present at the wooing. Meanwhile, 'Darling
Dorel' did ask the damsels where they had gotten the rings which they
had presented to their gallants in return for theirs? Thereupon Agnes
did reply unto her ladyship:

"'Most gracious lady! we are but poor orphans, and possess nought save
poor little gold rings belonging to our departed mothers, And these we
could not bear to part with. We have therefore promised to buy rings
with our sa