nce," said Warwick, generously;
"in that, all else is given, and in return for that, I will make the
greatest sacrifice that my nature knoweth, or can conceive,--I will
mortify my familiar demon, I will subdue my PRIDE. If Edward can
convince me that it is for the good of England that his sister should
wed with mine ancient and bitter foe, I will myself do honour to his
choice. But of this hereafter. Enough now that I forget past wrongs in
present favour; and that for peace or war, I return to the side of that
man whom I loved as my son before I served him as my king."

Neither Richard nor the archbishop was prepared for a conciliation so
facile, for neither quite understood that peculiar magnanimity which
often belongs to a vehement and hasty temper, and which is as eager
to forgive as prompt to take offence,--which, ever in extremes, is
not contented with anything short of fiery aggression or trustful
generosity, and where it once passes over an offence, seeks to oblige
the offender. So, when, after some further conversation on the state
of the country, the earl lighted Gloucester to his chamber, the young
prince said to himself, musingly,--

"Does ambition besot and blind men? Or can Warwick think that Edward can
ever view him but as one to be destroyed when the hour is ripe?"

Catesby, who was the duke's chamberlain, was in attendance as the prince
unrobed.

"A noble castle this," said the duke, "and one in the midst of a warlike
population,--our own countrymen of York."

"It would be no mean addition to the dowry of the Lady Isabel," said
Catesby, with his bland, false smile.

"Methinks rather that the lordships of Salisbury (and this is the
chief) pass to the Lady Anne," said Richard, musingly. "No, Edward were
imprudent to suffer this stronghold to fall to the next heir to his
throne. Marked you the Lady Anne?--her beauty is most excellent."

"Truly, your Highness," answered Catesby, unsuspiciously, "the Lady
Isabel seems to me the taller and the statelier."

"When man's merit and woman's beauty are measured by the ell, Catesby,
Anne will certainly be less fair than Isabel, and Richard a dolt
compared to Clarence. Open the casement; my dressing-robe; good-night to
you!"

CHAPTER III. THE SISTERS.

The next morning, at an hour when modern beauty falls into its first
sickly sleep, Isabel and Anne conversed on the same terrace, and near
the same spot, which had witnessed their father's meditations