"She's a naughty woman," sobbed Bertie.
"Yes, yes, she's a naughty woman;" and then by dint of coaxing and persuading there was little trace, when they reached Hannah at the further end of the village, of the fright or violent cry he had had; still, his nurse was not to be deceived.
"What's the matter with Master Bertie?" she asked.
"A poor idiot in one of the cottages frightened him," replied Frances; but she said not a word of the fever, or that the cottage was the one at the turnpike gate, and Bertie's version of the story was a great deal too unconnected to be understood, and merely seemed a corroboration of the one Frances had given.
CHAPTER X.
DOWN BY THE LAKE.
"At length within a lonely cell, They saw a mournful dame.
Her gentle eyes were dimm'd with tears, Her cheeks were pale with woe: And long Sir Valentine besought Her doleful tale to know.
'Alas! young knight,' she weeping said, 'Condole my wretched fate; A childless mother here you see; A wife without a mate'" Valentine and Ursine.