to me and mine,
or discontent his ambition and his hopes, Mort Dieu! we hold him not
a captive. Edward will hail his overtures of peace; let him make terms
with his brother, and return."

"I will report to him what you say, my lord," said Isabel, with cold
brevity and, bending her haughty head in formal reverence, she advanced
to the door. Anne sprang forward and caught her hand.

"Oh, Isabel!" she whispered, "in our father's sad and gloomy hour can
you leave him thus?" and the sweet lady burst into tears.

"Anne," retorted Isabel, bitterly, "thy heart is Lancastrian; and what,
peradventure, grieves my father hath but joy for thee."

Anne drew back, pale and trembling, and her sister swept from the room.

The earl, though he had not overheard the whispered sentences which
passed between his daughters, had watched them closely, and his lip
quivered with emotion as Isabel closed the door.

"Come hither, my Anne," he said tenderly; "thou who hast thy mother's
face, never hast a harsh thought for thy father."

As Anne threw herself on Warwick's breast, he continued, "And how camest
thou to learn that Margaret disowns a deed that, if done by her command,
would render my union with her cause a sacrilegious impiety to the
dead?"

Anne coloured, and nestled her head still closer to her father's bosom.
Her mother regarded her confusion and her silence with an anxious eye.

The wing of the palace in which the earl's apartments were situated
was appropriated to himself and household, flanked to the left by an
abutting pile containing state-chambers, never used by the austere and
thrifty Louis, save on great occasions of pomp or revel; and, as we have
before observed, looking on a garden, which was generally solitary and
deserted. From this garden, while Anne yet strove for words to answer
her father, and the countess yet watched her embarrassment, suddenly
came the soft strain of a Provencal lute; while a low voice, rich, and
modulated at once by a deep feeling and an exquisite art that would have
given effect to even simpler words, breathed--

THE LAY OF THE HEIR OF LANCASTER

"His birthright but a father's name,
A grandsire's hero-sword,
He dwelt within the stranger's land,
The friendless, homeless lord!"

"Yet one dear hope, too dear to tell,
Consoled the exiled man;
The angels have their home in heaven
And gentle thoughts in Anne."

At that name the voice of t