he singer trembled, and paused a moment;
the earl, who at first had scarcely listened to what he deemed but the
ill-seasoned gallantry of one of the royal minstrels, started in proud
surprise, and Anne herself, tightening her clasp round her father's
neck, burst into passionate sobs. The eye of the countess met that of
her lord; but she put her finger to her lips in sign to him to listen.
The song was resumed--

"Recall the single sunny time,
In childhood's April weather,
When he and thou, the boy and girl,
Roved hand in band together."

"When round thy young companion knelt
The princes of the isle;
And priest and people prayed their God,
On England's heir to smile."

The earl uttered a half-stifled exclamation, but the minstrel heard not
the interruption, and continued,--

"Methinks the sun hath never smiled
Upon the exiled man,
Like that bright morning when the boy
Told all his soul to Anne."

"No; while his birthright but a name,
A grandsire's hero--sword,
He would not woo the lofty maid
To love the banished lord."

"But when, with clarion, fife, and drum,
He claims and wins his own;
When o'er the deluge drifts his ark,
To rest upon a throne."

"Then, wilt thou deign to hear the hope
That blessed the exiled man,
When pining for his father's crown
To deck the brows of Anne?"

The song ceased, and there was silence within the chamber, broken but by
Anne's low yet passionate weeping. The earl gently strove to disengage
her arms from his neck; but she, mistaking his intention, sank on her
knees, and covering her face with her hands, exclaimed,--

"Pardon! pardon! pardon him, if not me!"

"What have I to pardon? What hast thou concealed from me? Can I think
that thou hast met, in secret, one who--"

"In secret! Never, never, Father! This is the third time only that I
have heard his voice since we have been at Amboise, save when--save
when--"

"Go on."

"Save when King Louis presented him to me in the revel under the name
of the Count de F----, and he asked me if I could forgive his mother for
Lord Clifford's crime."

"It is, then, as the rhyme proclaimed; and it is Edward of Lancaster who
loves and woos the daughter of Lord Warwick!"

Something in her father's voice made Anne remove her hands from her
face, and look up to him with a thrill of timid joy. Upon