," she said.

"Is the other one bad, then?" he inquired. "And why does his Majesty
give her things made of gold?"

"To pay her," answered Mistress Rebecca, looking thoughtfully out of
the window.

"For what?" the young Marquess asked.

"For--for that an honest woman should not take pay for."

"Then why does he love her? Is he a bad King?" his voice lowering as he
said it and his brown-eyed, ruddy little face grown solemn.

"A quiet woman in a place like mine cannot judge of Kings," she
answered; "but to be King is a grave thing."

"Grave!" cried he; "I thought it was very splendid. All England belongs
to him; he wears a gold crown and people kneel to kiss his hand. My
father and mother kneel to him when they go to the Court."

"That is why it is grave," said Mistress Rebecca. "All the people look
to him for their example. Because he is their head they follow him. He
can lead them to good or evil. He can help England to be honest or
base. He is the KING."

The little fellow looked out upon the fair scene spread before him.
Many thoughts he could not yet have found words for welled up within
him and moved him vaguely.

"He is the King," he repeated, softly; "he is the _King_!"

Mistress Rebecca looked at him with tender, searching eyes. She had,
through her own thoughts, learned how much these small
creatures--sometimes dealt with so carelessly--felt when they were too
young for phrases, and how much, also, they remembered their whole
lives through.

"He is the King," she said, "and a King must think of his people. A
Duke, too, must think of his--as his Grace, your father, thinks, never
dealing lightly with his great name or his great house, or those of
whom he is governor."

The boy climbed upon her knee and sat there, leaning against her as he
loved to do. His eyes rested on the far edge of the farthest purple
moor, behind which the sun seemed to be slipping away into some other
world he knew not of. The little clouds floating in the high blue sky
were rosy where they were not golden; a flock of rooks was flying
slowly homeward over the tree-tops, cawing lazily as they came. A great
and beautiful stillness seemed to rest on all the earth, and his little
mind was full of strange ponderings, leading him through labyrinths of
dreams he would remember and comprehend the deep meaning of only when
he was a man. Somehow all his thoughts were trooping round about a rich
and brilliant figure which was a sort of