r Majesty's cause that wearie spring."

Here Cis stirred in her sleep, and both women were at her side in a
moment, but she did not wake.

Jean Kennedy stood gazing at the girl with eagerness that she did not
attempt to conceal, studying each feature in detail; but Cis showed in
her sleep very little of her royal lineage, which betrayed itself far
more in her gait and bearing than in her features. Susan could not
help demanding of the nurse whether she saw any resemblance that could
show the maiden's parentage.

The old lady gave a kind of Scotch guttural sound expressive of
disappointment, and said, "I'll no say but I've seen the like
beetle-broo. But we'll waken the bairn with our clavers. I'll away
the noo. Maister Gorion will see her again ere night, but it were ill
to break her sleep, the puir lassie!"

Nevertheless, she could not resist bending over and kissing the
sleeper, so gently that there was no movement. Then she left the room,
and Susan stood with clasped hands.

"My child! my child! Oh, is it coming on thee? Wilt thou be taken
from me! Oh, and to what a fate! And to what hands! They will never
never love thee as we have done! O God, protect her, and be her
Father."

And Susan knelt by the bed in such a paroxysm of grief that her
husband, coming in unshod that he might not disturb the girl,
apprehended that she had become seriously worse.

However, his entrance awoke her, and she found herself much better, and
was inclined to talk, so he sat down on a chest by the bed, and related
what Diccon had told him of the reappearance of the woman with the
basket of spar trinkets.

"Beads and bracelets," said Cicely.

"Ay?" said he. "What knowest thou of them?"

"Only that she spake the words so often; and the Queen, just ere that
doctor began his speech, asked of me whether she did not sell beads and
bracelets."

"'Tis a password, no doubt, and we must be on our guard," said Richard,
while his wife demanded with whom Diccon had seen her speaking.

"With Gorion," returned he. "That was what made the lad suspect
something, knowing that the chirurgeon can barely speak three sentences
in any tongue but his own, and those are in their barbarous Scotch. I
took the boy with me and inquired here, there, and everywhere this
afternoon, but could find no one who had ever seen or heard of any one
like her."

"Tell me, Cis," exclaimed Susan, with a sudden conviction, "was she
like in any fashion