“Then will I wear it to my grave,” was 273 Francis’ answer. “I am fixed in this resolve, Mistress Shelton, and naught can turn me from it.”
“As ye please then,” quoth the dame. “Full surely thou art as stubborn a lady as it hath ever been my hap to see. But if ye will not, ye will not;” and she took the garments away.
Francis now occupied her mother’s apartment in the Bell Tower, and because of this fact found a curious contentment in it.
“It may be that her spirit lingers here loth to leave me alone,” she thought, and she took to watching for a sign that such was the case.
She was roused from this dangerous train of thought by Mrs. Shelton appearing before her one day with a basket of figs. The girl uttered an exclamation of delight at sight of them, so small a thing does it take to arouse interest sometimes.
“For me?” she cried. “Whence came they? Who could have sent them?”
“Ask me not, mistress. I know naught of them save that they came from without the gates of the Tower. Sir Michael searched the basket, and as there was nothing but the fruit, he let it pass.” 274
“Who could have sent them?” murmured Francis, again in ecstasy. It was so sweet not to be forgotten. To know that some one still remembered her. “Could it be my father? Nay; he would not dare. Lord Shrope? Yea; it must have been he. Good, kind friend that he is!”
From this time forward her recovery was rapid. And when the following month brought a bouquet of sweet smelling flowers, the third, a basket of cherries, her joy knew no bounds. Thereafter no month went by without some token reaching her from that unknown person who seemed so full of sweet remembrance of her.
“Now blessings be upon his head who hath so much of thought for me,” she exclaimed rapturously as a guitar took the place of fruit or flowers. “No more shall I be lonely with such companion.”