placed as to be entirely
out of her own view, and Mrs. Susan had kept them from the knowledge or
remark of any one. They were also high enough up to be quite clear
from the bandages, and thus she was amazed to hear the exclamation,
"There! sooth enough."

"Monsieur Gorion could swear to them instantly."

"What is it? Oh, what is it, madam?" cried Cis, affrighted; "is there
anything on my back? No plague spot, I hope;" and her eyes grew round
with terror.

The Queen laughed. "No plague spot, sweet one, save, perhaps, in the
eyes of you Protestants, but to me they are a gladsome sight--a token I
never hoped to see."

And the bewildered girl felt a pair of soft lips kiss each mark in
turn, and then the covering was quickly and caressingly restored, and
Mary added, "Lie down, my child, and now to bed, to bed, my maids.
Patent the lights." Then, making the sign of the cross, as Cis had
seen poor Antony Babington do, the Queen, just as all the lights save
one were extinguished, was divested of her wrapper and veil, and took
her place beside Cis on the pillows. The two Maries left the chamber,
and Jean Kennedy disposed herself on a pallet at the foot of the bed.

"And so," said the Queen, in a low voice, tender, but with a sort of
banter, "she thought she had the plague spot on her little white
shoulders. Didst thou really not know what marks thou bearest, little
one?"

"No, madam," said Cis. "Is it what I have felt with my fingers?"

"Listen, child," said Mary. "Art thou at thine ease; thy poor shoulder
resting well? There, then, give me thine hand, and I will tell thee a
tale. There was a lonely castle in a lake, grim, cold, and northerly;
and thither there was brought by angry men a captive woman. They had
dealt with her strangely and subtilly; they had laid on her the guilt
of the crimes themselves had wrought; and when she clung to the one man
whom at least she thought honest, they had forced and driven her into
wedding him, only that all the world might cry out upon her, forsake
her, and deliver her up into those cruel hands."

There was something irresistibly pathetic in Mary's voice, and the
maiden lay gazing at her with swimming eyes.

"Thou dost pity that poor lady, sweet one? There was little pity for
her then! She had looked her last on her lad--bairn; ay, and they had
said she had striven to poison him, and they were breeding him up to
loathe the very name of his mother; yea, and to hate