m looked very unhappy at this raking up of bygone misdeeds.

"Methinks your Ladyship is in ill humour this morrow," said Margaret.
"Be not so hard on the lad, for he loveth you."

"When I love him, I will do him to wit," said Constance cuttingly.
"Come, Meg."

Dame Margaret obeyed the command, but she kept hold of the hand of her
little brother. When they were gone, Alvena laid down her work and
laughed.

"Thy Queen of Faery is passing gracious, Maude."

"She scarce seemed to matter the lad," was Maude's reply.

"Yet she hath sworn to do his bidding all the days of her life," said
Alvena.

"Why," said Maude, looking up in surprise, "would you say the Lady
Custance is troth-plight unto this imp?" [Little boy.]

"Nay, she is wedded wife. 'Tis five years or more sithence they were
wed. My Lady Custance had years four, and my Lord Le Despenser five.
They could but just syllable their vows. And I mind me, the Lady
Custance stuck at `obey,' and she had to be threatened with a
fustigation [beating, whipping] ere she would go on."

"But who dared threaten her?" inquired Maude.

"Marry, my Lord her father, which fell into a fit of ire to see her
perversity.--There goeth the dinner bell; lap thy work, child. For me,
I am well fain to hear it."

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Note 1. The child was Constance, only daughter of Edmund Duke of York
(seventh son of Edward the Third) and Isabel of Castilla.

Note 2. Agnes de La Marche had been the nurse of two of Edward the
Third's sons, Lionel and Edmund. She lived to old age, and was long in
receipt of a pension from the Crown for her former service.

Note 3. Wycliffe's rendering of Revelations sixteen 6. In various
places he follows what are now determined to be the best and most
ancient authorities.

CHAPTER THREE.

STRANGE TALES.

"Oh stay me not, thou holy friar!
Oh stay me not, I pray!
No drizzling rain that falls on me
Can wash my fault away."--Bishop Percy.

On entering the banquet-hall of Langley Palace, Maude the tire-maiden
found herself promoted to a very different position from that which had
been filled by Maude the scullion. Her former place had been near the
door, and far below that important salt-cellar which was then the
table-indicator of rank. She was directed now to take her seat as the
lowest of the Countess's maidens, on a form just opposite the
salt-cellar, which was mor