his religion's sake. I have ever remarked, when the
sun shines the cheeriest, her spirit is the darkest."

"Will she not speak to me?" enquired Alayn.

"No," replied his cousin. "When in these deepest moods of melancholy,
she will not speak but upon the subject of those fatal days, or if her
attention be aroused by the mention of her slaughtered kindred; and
Heaven forbid that an unguarded word from me should excite so terrible a
crisis as would ensue!"

"And she remains always thus now?" asked the youth.

"Not always," answered Jocelyne. "There are times when she is as of old,
and speaks to me with calmness. But at these better hours she makes no
mention of the past."

"She never talks, then, of returning to the palace?" continued Alayn,
with an evident air of satisfaction upon his round ruddy face.

"Never," replied the girl, with an involuntary sigh.

"And yet her foster-son, the king, has often sent for her."

"Hush!" interrupted Jocelyne. "Let not that name strike upon her ear.
Although she hears us not, the very word might, perchance, call up
within her recollections I would were banished from her mind for ever.
The name of her nursling, whom she once loved as were she his own
mother, and he had not worn a crown, is now a sound of horror to her.
Often has she cursed him in the bitterness of her heart," she continued
in a low tone of mystery, as if fearful lest the very walls should hear
her confidence, "as the slayer of the righteous. She never can forgive
him the treacherous order given for that murderous deed of slaughter and
destruction."

"But he protected her from all harm in that general massacre of our
party in religion, from which so few of us escaped," said Alayn.

"She would rather have died, I verily believe," pursued the fair girl
shuddering, "than have lived to see her own son fall, so cruelly
murdered by the son of her fostering care."

"And she never will return to him again?" enquired the young man with
another gleam of satisfaction.

Jocelyne shook her head.

"So much the better. So much the better," pursued Alayn stoutly. "For
then I can see you when I will, fair cousin Jocelyne, and come and sit
by your side as I do now, to continue my work with the permission of my
master the armourer, who, whatever he may say, is as good a Calvinist at
heart as ourselves, I am sure. And you will return no more with my
grandmother among those villanous popinjays about the court, who are
ever fo