crowned the swiftest workwoman with field flowers, withering in the
nearest swathe. All wove garlands, then made for the shade of the trees
and shared a low basket of golden apples. One had a lute and another
sang a love ditty with ethereal passion. They were in Arcadia,--silken
shepherdesses, slim princes in disguise,--and they breathed the
sweetness, the innocent yet lofty grace which was the country's
natal air.

"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," kept much, in her gentle, filial
sorrow, to her great chamber above the gardens, where she wrote and
studied, and to her closet, where before an eastern window was set the
low chair beside which she kneeled in prayer for her living and her
dead. She prayed much alone, but once a day, when the morn was young,
she sent for one who was named her gentlewoman indeed, but to whom all
her train gave deference, knowing of the love between this lady and
their mistress. The lady came, beautiful, patient, with lips that smiled
on life, and wonderful dark eyes in which the smile was drowned. The
Countess took her morning kiss and the fair coolness of her pressed
cheek, then praised the flowers in her hands, all jewelled with the
dew--a lovely posy to be set amongst the Countess's little library of
pious works. Then on this as on other days the two fair women read
together, their soft voices making tremulous music of the stately Latin.
The reading done, they kneeled side by side, dark hair against light,
praying silently, each her own prayers. It was a morning rite,
poignantly dear to them both; it began and helped upon its way the
livelong lingering day. They arose and kissed, and presently the
Countess spoke of letters which she must write. "Then," said the other,
"I will go sit by the fountain until you wish for me."

"The fountain!" answered Mary Sidney. "Ah, Damaris! I would that thou
mightst forget the fountain. I would that other blooms than red roses
were planted there!"

"That would not I!" the other answered. "I love the fountain. And once a
red rose meant to me--Paradise!"

"Then go thy ways, and gather thy roses," said the Countess fondly. "I
would give thee Heaven an I could--so that thou stayed upon earth with
thy fairing!"

The Countess sat herself down to write to Philip Sidney, not knowing
that he was so near the frontier whence no living messenger, no warm and
loving cry could ever draw him back. Damaris, a book in her hand, passed
through the silent, darken