it
might have been a ballad sung by a harper for its sadness. Well, this
fellow ventured too far in her service, and had to flee to France to
become an archer of the guard, while the wife remained and died at
Lochleven Castle, having given birth to our Cis, whom the Queen in due
time despatched to her father, he being minded to have her bred up in a
French nunnery, sending her to Dunbar to be there embarked in the Bride
of Dunbar."

"And the father?"

"Oh, forsooth, the father! It cost her as little to dispose of him as
of the mother. He was killed in some brawl with the Huguenots; so that
the poor child is altogether an orphan, beholden to our care, for which
she thanked me with tears in her eyes, that were more true than mayhap
the poor woman could help."

"Poor lady," said Susan. "Yet can it not be sooth indeed?"

"Nay, dame, that may not be. The cipher is not one that would be used
in simply sending a letter to the father."

"Might not the occasion have been used for corresponding in secret with
French friends?"

"I tell thee, wife, if I read one word of that letter, I read that the
child was her own, and confided to the Abbess of Soissons! I will read
it to thee once more ere I yield it up, that is if I ever do.
Wherefore cannot the woman speak truth to me? I would be true and
faithful were I trusted, but to be thus put off with lies makes a man
ready at once to ride off with the whole to the Queen in council."

"Think, but think, dear sir," pleaded Susan, "how the poor lady is
pressed, and how much she has to fear on all sides."

"Ay, because lies have been meat and drink to her, till she cannot
speak a soothfast word nor know an honest man when she sees him."

"What would she have?"

"That Cis should remain with us as before, and still pass for our
daughter, till such time as these negotiations are over, and she
recover her kingdom. That is--so far as I see--like not to be till
latter Lammas--but meantime what sayest thou, Susan? Ah! I knew,
anything to keep the child with thee! Well, be it so--though if I had
known the web we were to be wound into, I'd have sailed for the Indies
with Humfrey long ago!"

CHAPTER XV.

MOTHER AND CHILD.

Cicely was well enough the next day to leave her room and come out on
the summer's evening to enjoy the novel spectacle of Trowle Madame, in
which she burned to participate, so soon as her shoulder should be
well. It was with a foreboding hear