“But there will be dozens of other maidens,” said Elaine. “There are plenty of girls in the world beside Heliet.”
Clarice was beginning to think there hardly were for her.
“Oh, thou dost not know what thou wilt see at Westminster!” exclaimed Elaine. “The Lord King, and the Lady Queen, and all the Court; and the Abbey, with all its riches, and ever so many maids and gallants. It is delicious beyond description, when the Lady is away visiting some shrine, and she does that nearly every day.”
Roisia’s “Hush!” had come too late.
“I pray you say that again, my mistress!” said the well-known voice of the Lady Margaret in the doorway. “Nay, I will have it.—Fetch me the rod, Agatha.—Now then, minion, what saidst? Thou caitiff giglot! If I had thee not in hand, that tongue of thine should bring thee to ruin. What saidst, hussy?”
And Elaine had to repeat the unlucky words, with the birch in prospect, and immediately afterwards in actuality.
“I will lock thee up when I go visiting shrines!” said the Countess with her last stroke. “Agatha, remember when we are at Westminster that I have said so.”
“Ay, Lady,” observed Mistress Underdone, composedly.
And the Lady Margaret, throwing down the birch, stalked away, and left the sobbing Elaine to resume her composure at her leisure.
In a vaulted upper chamber of the Palace of Westminster, on a bright morning in June, four persons were seated. Three, who were of the nobler sex, were engaged in converse; the last, a lady, sat apart with her embroidery in modest silence. They were near relatives, for the men were respectively husband, brother-in-law, and uncle of the woman, and they were the most prominent members of the royal line of England, with one who did not belong to it.