n such a matter was purblind and
helpless, and they trusted much to his implicit faith in the Talbots.

There was only just time to complete her preparations before she was
summoned; and with an almost convulsive embrace from her mother, and
whispered benedictions from Jean Kennedy, she left the dreary walls of
Fotheringhay.

Humfrey rode with them through the Chase. Both he and Cicely were very
silent. When the time came for parting, Cicely said, as she laid her
hand in his, "Dear brother, for my sake do all thou canst for her with
honour."

"That will I," said Humfrey. "Would that I were going with thee,
Cicely!"

"So would not I," she returned; "for then there would be one true heart
the less to watch over her."

"Come, daughter!" said Richard, who had engaged one of the gentlemen in
conversation so as to leave them to themselves. "We must be jogging.
Fare thee well, my son, till such time as thy duties permit thee to
follow us."

CHAPTER XXXVII.

MY LADY'S REMORSE.

"And have you brought her back again! O my lass! my lass!" cried
Mistress Susan, surprised and delighted out of her usual staid
composure, as, going out to greet her husband, an unexpected figure was
seen by his side, and Cicely sprang into her arms as if they were truly
a haven of rest.

Susan looked over her head, even in the midst of the embrace, with the
eyes of one hungering for her first-born son, but her husband shook his
head. "No, mother, we have not brought thee the boy. Thou must
content thyself with her thou hast here for a little space."

"I hope it bodes not ill," said Susan.

"It bodes," said Richard, "that I have brought thee back a good
daughter with a pair of pale cheeks, which must be speedily coloured
anew in our northern breezes."

"Ah, how sweet to be here at home," cried Cicely, turning round in
rapturous greeting to all the serving men and women, and all the dogs.
"We want only the boys! Where is Ned?"

Their arrival having been unannounced, Ned was with Master Sniggius,
whose foremost scholar he now was, and who kept him much later than the
other lads to prepare him for Cambridge; but it was the return to this
tender foster-mother that seemed such extreme bliss to Cicely. All was
most unlike her reluctant return two years previously, when nothing but
her inbred courtesy and natural sweetness of disposition had prevented
her from being contemptuous of the country home. Now every stone,
every lea