names of several that had come
to see her; she had been fair to look at; and the King had pardoned
many felons, so that men's wives and mothers had been made glad; and
most old men said that the good times were come again, with the price of
malt fallen and twenty-six to the score of herrings. It was reported,
too, that a cider press in Herefordshire had let down a dozen firkins of
cider without any apples being set in it, and this was accounted an omen
of great plenty, whilst many sheep had died, so that men who had set
their fields down in grass talked of giving them to the plough again,
and upon St Swithin's Day no rain had fallen. All these things gave a
great contentment, and many that in the hard days had thought to become
Lutheran in search of betterment, now looked in byres and hidden valleys
to find priests of the old faith. For if a man could plough he might
eat, and if he might eat he could praise God after his father's manner
as well as in a new way.

Thus, around the Lady Mary, whilst she wrote, the people of the land
breathed more peace. And even she could not but be conscious of a new
softness, if it was only in the warmth that came from having her
window-leads properly mended. She had hardly ever before known what it
was to have warm hands when she wrote, and in most days of the year she
had worn fur next her skin, indoors as well as out. But now the sun beat
on her new windows, and in that warmth she could wear fine lawn, so
that, in spite of herself, she took pleasure and was softened, though,
since she spoke to no man save the Magister Udal, and to him only about
the works of Plautus or the game of cards that they played together, few
knew of any change in her.

Nevertheless, on that day she had one of her more ill moods and,
presently, having written a little more, she rang a small silver bell
that was shaped like a Dutch woman with wide skirts.

'The Prince annoys me,' she said to her woman; 'send for his lady
governess.'

The woman, dressed all in black, like her mistress, and with a little
frill of white cambric over her temples as if she were a nun, stood in
the open doorway that was just level with the Lady Mary's chair, so that
the stone wall of the passage caught the light from the window. She
folded her hands before her.

'Alack, Madam,' she said, 'your Madamship knows that at this hour his
Highness' lady governess taketh ever the air.'

The little boy in the chair looked over his pape