"No, my lady."
"See what havoc these girls have wrought with my stomacher! Pick me up the jewels, Barbara, if your mistress can spare you such brief time."
"I was not with her, my lady: she said she would call when I was wanted. I can hear her in this chamber."
While Barbara was gathering the jewels, her tears fell fast upon them. Lady Frances observed it, and smiling said,—
"You are gemming my ornaments, setting them in crystal instead of gold."
"I can't help my tears, dear lady, when I think how she weeps. Oh, it is a mournful thing to see an oak bend like a willow, or a stately rose low as a little wild flower! Something has crushed her heart, and I cannot help her. I would lay down my life to make her happy, if I knew but how! The very dogs hang their tails, and steal across the rooms they used to gambol in! Ah, madam, she has wealth, and rank, and all that a poor girl would call great glory. Yet her step is like the step of an aged woman, and her head is bent, though not with the weight of years. I think of a little poem I knew when I was a child. I believe I heard it before I could speak the words thereof, yet it is so perfect on my mind. Did you ever hear it, madam? it is called 'The Lady of Castile.'"
"Never; but I should like to hear it, Barbara, while you hook on the diamonds those careless minxes scattered so heedlessly. What tune is it to?"
"I know not the tune, madam; nor could I sing it now if I did. I often wonder how the birds can sing when they lose their mates; though their notes are not, as at other times, cheery; and no wonder. It's very cruel to kill poor innocent birds."
"Let me hear the ballad, Barbara."
"I fear me, it has gone out of my head; but, madam, it began thus, something after a popish fashion; but no harm, no great harm in it:—