as a little softened. "The child died in it?" she
asked.

"Yea, madam. He had been on his father's knee, and had seemed a little
easier, and as if he might sleep, so Sir Gilbert laid him down, and he
did but stretch himself out, shiver all over, draw a long breath, and
the pretty lamb was gone to Paradise!"

"You saw him, Susan?"

"Yea, madam. Dame Mary sent for me, but none could be of any aid where
it was the will of Heaven to take him."

"If I had been there," said the Countess, "I who have brought up eight
children and lost none, I should have saved him! So he died in yonder
cedar cradle! Well, e'en let Mary keep it. It may be that there is
infection in the smell of the cedar wood, and that the child will sleep
better out of it. It is too late to do aught this evening, but
to-morrow the child shall be lodged as befits her birth, in the
presence chamber."

"Ah, madam!" said Susan, "would it be well for the sweet babe if her
Majesty's messengers, who be so often at the castle, were to report her
so lodged?"

"I have a right to lodge my grandchild where and how I please in my own
house."

"Yea, madam, that is most true, but you wot how the Queen treats all
who may have any claim to the throne in future times; and were it
reported by any of the spies that are ever about us, how royal honours
were paid to the little Lady Arbell, might she not be taken from your
ladyship's wardship, and bestowed with those who would not show her
such loving care?"

The Countess would not show whether this had any effect on her, or else
some sound made by the child attracted her. It was a puny little
thing, and she had a true grandmother's affection for it, apart from
her absurd pride and ambition, so that she was glad to hold counsel
over it with Susan, who had done such justice to her training as to be,
in her eyes, a mother who had sense enough not to let her children
waste and die; a rare merit in those days, and one that Susan could not
disclaim, though she knew that it did not properly belong to her.

Cis had stood by all the time like a little statue, for no one, not
even young Lady Talbot, durst sit down uninvited in the presence of
Earl or Countess; but her black brows were bent, her gray eyes intent.

"Mother," she said, as they went home on their quiet mules, "are great
ladies always so rudely spoken to one another?"

"I have not seen many great ladies, Cis, and my Lady Countess has
always been good to me.