coast?"

In came the tall old man with a stiff reverence: "Madam, your Grace's
horses attend you, and I have tidings"--(Mary started
forward)--"tidings for this young lady, Mistress Cicely Talbot. Her
brother is arrived from the Spanish Main, and requests permission to
see and speak with her."

Radiance flashed out on Cicely's countenance as excitement faded on
that of her mother: "Humfrey! O madam! let me go to him!" she
entreated, with a spring of joy and clasped hands.

Mary was far too kind-hearted to refuse, besides to have done so would
have excited suspicion at a perilous moment, and the arrangement Sir
Amias proposed was quickly made. Mary Seaton was to attend the Queen
in Cicely's stead, and she was allowed to hurry downstairs, and only
one warning was possible:

"Go then, poor child, take thine holiday, only bear in mind what and
who thou art."

Yet the words had scarce died on her ears before she was oblivious of
all save that it was a familial home figure who stood at the bottom of
the stairs, one of the faces she trusted most in all the world which
beamed out upon her, the hands which she knew would guard her through
everything were stretched out to her, the lips with veritable love in
them kissed the cheeks she did not withhold. Sir Amias stood by and
gave the kindest smile she had seen from him, quite changing his
pinched features, and he proposed to the two young people to go and
walk in the garden together, letting them out into the square walled
garden, very formal, but very bright and gay, and with a pleached alley
to shelter them from the sun.

"Good old gentleman!" exclaimed Humfrey, holding the maiden's hand in
his. "It is a shame to win such pleasure by feigning."

"As for that," sighed Cis, "I never know what is sooth here, and what
am I save a living lie myself? O Humfrey! I am so weary of it all."

"Ah I would that I could bear thee home with me," he said, little
prepared for this reception.

"Would that thou couldst! O that I were indeed thy sister, or that the
writing in my swaddling bands had been washed out!--Nay," catching back
her words, "I meant not that! I would not but belong to the dear Lady
here. She says I comfort her more than any of them, and oh! she
is--she is, there is no telling how sweet and how noble. It was only
that the sight of thee awoke the yearning to be at home with mother and
with father. Forget my folly, Humfrey."

"I cannot soon forget that B