Part 5 (2/2)

”I suspect thou wouldst find a difference if thou wert to enter one,”

sneered Diana.

Elaine would most likely have fought out the question had not Mistress Underdone entered at that moment with a plate of gingerbread in her hand smoking hot from the oven.

”Oh, Mistress, I am so hungry!” plaintively observed that young lady.

Mistress Underdone laughed, and set down the plate. ”There, part the spice-cake among you,” said she. ”And when you be through, I have somewhat to tell you.”

”Tell us now,” said Elaine, as well as a mouthful of gingerbread allowed her to speak.

”Let me see, now--what day is this?” inquired Mistress Underdone.

All the voices answered her at once, ”Saint Dunstan's Eve!” [May 13th].

”So it is. Well--come Saint Botolph, [June 17th] as I have but now learned, we go to Whitehall.”

”_Ha, jolife_!” cried Diana, Elaine, and Roisia at once.

”Will Heliet go too?” asked Clarice, softly.

”Oh, no; Heliet never leaves Oakham,” responded Olympias.

Mistress Underdone looked kindly at Clarice. ”No, Heliet will not go,”

she said. ”She cannot ride, poor heart.” And the mother sighed, as if she felt the prospective pain of separation.

”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 ”Hus.h.!.+” 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 n.o.bler s.e.x, 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.

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