then took leave with
equal ceremony, and saw no more of one another for some months.

The Lady Le Despenser, it must be admitted, was not the woman calculated
to attract such a nature as that of Constance. She was a Lollard, by
birth no less than by marriage; but in her creed she was an ascetic of
the sternest and most unbending type. In her judgment a laugh was
indecorum, and smelling a rose was indulgence of the flesh. Her
behaviour to her royal daughter-in-law was marked by the utmost outward
deference, yet she never failed to leave the impression on Constance's
mind that she regarded her as an outsider and a reprobate. Moreover,
the Lady Le Despenser had some singular notions on the subject of love.
Fortunately for her children, her heart was larger than her creed, and
often overstepped the bounds assigned; but her theory was that human
affections should be kept made up in labelled parcels, so much and no
more to be allowed in each case. Favouritism was idolatry affectionate
words were foolish condescensions to the flesh; while loving caresses
savoured altogether of the evil one.

Now Constance liked dearly both to pet and to be petted. She loved, as
she hated, intensely. The calm, sedate personal regard, in
consideration of the meritorious qualities of the individual in
question, which the Lady Le Despenser termed love, was not love at all
in the eyes of Constance. The Dowager, moreover, was cool and
deliberate; she objected to impulses, and after her calm fashion
disliked impulsive people, whom she thought were not to be trusted. And
Constance was all impulse. The squeaking of a mouse would have called
forth gestures and ejaculations from the one, which the other would have
deemed too extreme to be appropriate to an earthquake.

The Lord Le Despenser was the last of his mother's three sons--the
youngest-born, and the only survivor; and she loved him in reality far
more than she would have been willing to allow, and to an extent which
she would have deemed iniquitous idolatry in any other woman. In
character he resembled her but slightly. The narrow-mindedness and
obstinacy inherent in her family--for no Burghersh was ever known to see
more than one side of any thing--was softened and modified in him into
firmness and fidelity. His heart was large enough to hold a deep
reservoir of love, but not so wide at its exit as to allow the stream to
flow forth in all directions at once. If this be narrow-min