ere was? The maid need not be
uplifted, for there's nothing alike between them, only she hath caught
the trick of her bearing so as to startle me in the dark, my head
running on the poor lady. I could have sworn 'twas she coming in, as
she was when she first came to our care fifteen years agone. Pray
Heaven she may not haunt the place! How fareth she in health, wench?"

"Well, madam, save when the rheumatic pains take her," said Cicely.

"And still of good courage?"

"That, madam, nothing can daunt."

Seats, though only joint stools, were given to the ladies, but Susan
found herself no longer trembling at the effects of the Countess's
insolence upon Cicely, who seemed to accept it all as a matter of
course, and almost of indifference, though replying readily and with a
gentle grace, most unlike her childish petulance.

Many close inquiries from the Earl and Countess were answered by
Richard and the young lady, until they had a tolerably clear idea of
the situation. The Countess wept bitterly, and to Cicely's great
amazement began bemoaning herself that she was not still the poor
lady's keeper. It was a shame to put her where there were no women to
feel for her. Lady Shrewsbury had apparently forgotten that no one had
been so virulent against the Queen as herself.

And when it was impossible to deny that things looked extremely ill,
and that Burghley and Walsingham seemed resolved not to let slip this
opportunity of ridding themselves of the prisoner, my Lady burst out
with, "Ah! there it is! She will die, and my promise is broken, and
she will haunt me to my dying day, all along of that venomous toad and
spiteful viper, Mary Talbot."

A passionate fit of weeping succeeded, mingled with vituperations of
her daughter Mary, far more than of herself, and amid it all, during
Susan's endeavours at soothing, Cicely gathered that the cause of the
Countess's despair was that in the time of her friendship and amity,
she had uttered an assurance that the Queen need not fear death, as she
would contrive means of safety. And on her own ground, in her own
Castle or Lodge, there could be little doubt that she would have been
able to have done so. The Earl, indeed, shook his head, but repented,
for she laughed at him half angrily, half hysterically, for thinking he
could have prevented anything that she was set upon.

And now she said and fully believed that the misunderstanding which had
resulted in the removal of t