shred of green sewing-silk, as though her most important concern were to
make it go round a certain number of times.

It was the old story, so many times repeated in this world, sometimes to
flow smoothly on like waters to their haven, sometimes to end in stormy
wreckage and bitter disappointment.

They were very young lovers. We should term them mere boy and girl, and
count them unfit to consider the matter at all. But in the thirteenth
century, when circumstances forced men and women early to the front, and
sixty years was considered ripe old age, fifteen was equivalent at least
to twenty now.

In this instance, the course of true love--for it was on both sides very
true--seemed likely to be smooth enough. The King had granted the
marriage of Richard to Earl Hubert; and, as was then well understood,
the person to whom he would most probably marry his ward was his own
daughter. The only irregular item of the matter was that the pair
should fall in love, or should broach the subject at all to each other.
But human hearts are unaccountable articles; and even in those days,
when matrimony was an affair of rule and compasses, those irregular
things did occasionally conduct themselves in a very irregular manner,
leading young people to fall in love (and sometimes to run away) with
the wrong person, but happily and occasionally, as in this instance,
with the right one.

Half an hour later, Margaret was kneeling on a velvet cushion at the
feet of the Countess, who was (with secret delight) receiving auricular
confession concerning the very point on which she had set her heart.

This mother and daughter were great friends,--a state of things too
infrequent at any time, and particularly so in the Middle Ages.
Margaret, the only one of her mother, was an unusually cherished and
petted child. The result was that she had no fear of the Countess, and
looked upon her as her natural confidante. Perhaps, if more daughters
would do so, there might be fewer unhappy marriages. At the same time
it must be admitted, that some mothers by no means invite confidence.

The Countess of Kent, sweet as she was, had one great failing,--a fault
often to be found in very gentle and amiable natures. She was not
sufficiently straightforward. Instead of honestly telling people what
she wanted them to do, she liked to manage them into it; and this
managing involved at most times more or less dissimulation. She dearly
loved to conduct he