uce--ace again!"

Gerard prepared to retire. The seneschal, with an incredulous smile,
replied:

"The young man is here by the Countess's orders; be so good as conduct
him to her ladies."

On this a superb Adonis rose, with an injured look, and led Gerard into
a room where sat or lolloped eleven ladies, chattering like magpies.
Two, more industrious than the rest, were playing cat's-cradle with
fingers as nimble as their tongues. At the sight of a stranger all the
tongues stopped like one piece of complicated machinery, and all the
eyes turned on Gerard, as if the same string that checked the tongues
had turned the eyes on. Gerard was ill at ease before, but this battery
of eyes discountenanced him, and down went his eyes on the ground. Then
the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs
scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten,
giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said severely,
"Mesdames!" and they were all abashed at once as though a modesty string
had been pulled. This same duenna took Gerard, and marched before him
in solemn silence. The young man's heart sank, and he had half a mind to
turn and run out of the place.

"What must princes be," he thought, "when their courtiers are so
freezing? Doubtless they take their breeding from him they serve." These
reflections were interrupted by the duenna suddenly introducing him into
a room where three ladies sat working, and a pretty little girl tuning
a lute. The ladies were richly but not showily dressed, and the duenna
went up to the one who was hemming a kerchief, and said a few words in
a low tone. This lady then turned towards Gerard with a smile, and
beckoned him to come near her. She did not rise, but she laid aside her
work, and her manner of turning towards him, slight as the movement was,
was full of grace and ease and courtesy. She began a conversation at
once.

"Margaret Van Eyck is an old friend of mine, sir, and I am right glad to
have a letter from her hand, and thankful to you, sir, for bringing it
to me safely. Marie, my love, this is the gentleman who brought you that
pretty miniature."

"Sir, I thank you a thousand times," said the young lady.

"I am glad you feel her debtor, sweetheart, for our friend would have us
to do him a little service in return.

"I will do anything on earth for him," replied the young lady with
ardour.

"Anything on earth is nothing in the world," said