CHAPTER XXXVII. THE MOTHER
Dame Kingswell, the widow of that good merchant of Bristol whom Queen Elizabeth had knighted in her latter days, sat in her chamber and looked down upon a pleasant garden beneath the window. She was alone. Her garments, though of rich materials, were sombre in hue. She wore no personal ornaments save two rings on her left hand, and a chain of gold, bearing a small cross of the same metal, at her breast. Her thick hair was snow-white. In her youth it had been as black as her husband's had been flaxen. Her complexion held scarcely more colour than her hair. On her knees a book of devotional poetry, splendidly illuminated about the margins, lay open. But her thin hands were folded over the page, and her gaze was upon the shrubbery of the garden. The time was early evening. The sunlight was mellow gold. The hedges, shrubs, and fountain on the lawns threw eastward shadows.
The chamber in which the widow sat was large and scantily furnished. A few portraits, by masters of the brush, hung along the walls. A prayer-desk, with a red hassock before it, stood in a corner.
A light rapping sounded on the door. The lady turned her eyes from the bright garden below her window. She saw the door open, and a beautiful girl in cloak and hat enter the room. The stranger advanced quickly, in a whispering of silks, and in her glowing hands took the widow's bloodless fingers.
"My dear," said the elder woman, kindly, "I fear my memory is flitting. I do not recall your winsome face. Can it be that you are one of Sir Felix Brown's lasses, grown to such a fine young lady in London?"
The girl sank on her knees and kissed the pale hands lightly and prettily.
"My name is Beatrix Kingswell," she murmured.
The good dame was sorely puzzled. She tried, in vain, to connect this lovely creature with any branches of the late knight's family.