peaks very sooth [truth]. Yet I beseech you remember
that my Lady doth present [represent] an higher than herself--the King's
Grace and no lesser."

The lady in white rose to her feet.

"What mean you, woman? King Edward of Windsor may be your master and
hers, but he is not mine! I owe him no allegiance, nor I never sware
any."

"Your son hath sworn it, Dame."

The eyes blazed out again.

"My son is a hound!--a craven cur, that licks the hand that lashed
him!--a poor court fool that thinks it joy enough to carry his bauble,
and marvel at his motley coat and his silvered buttons! That he should
be my son,--and _his_!"

The voice changed so suddenly, that Amphillis could scarcely believe it
to be the same. All the passionate fury died out of it, and instead
came a low soft tone of unutterable pain, loneliness, and regret. The
speaker dropped down into her chair, and laying her arm upon the little
table, hid her face upon it.

"My poor Lady!" said Perrote in tender accents--more tender than
Amphillis had imagined she could use.

The lady in white lifted her head.

"I was not so weak once," she said. "There was a time when man said I
had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion. Maiden, never man sat
an horse better than I, and no warrior ever fought that could more ably
handle sword. I have mustered armies to the battle ere now; I have
personally conducted sieges, I have headed sallies on the camp of the
King of France. Am I meek pigeon to be kept in a dovecote? Look around
thee! This is my cage. Ha! the perches are fine wood, sayest thou? the
seed is good, and the water is clean! I deny it not. I say only, it is
a cage, and I am a royal eagle, that was never made to sit on a perch
and coo! The blood of an hundred kings is thrilling all along my veins,
and must I be silent? The blood of the sovereigns of France, the
kingdom of kingdoms,--of the sea-kings of Denmark, of the ancient kings
of Burgundy, and of the Lombards of the Iron Crown--it is with this mine
heart is throbbing, and man saith, `Be still!' How can I be still,
unless I were still in death? And man reckoneth I shall be a-paid for
my lost sword with a needle, and for my broken sceptre he offereth me a
bodkin!"

With a sudden gesture she brushed all the implements for needlework from
the little table to the floor.

"There! gather them up, which of you list. I lack no such babe's gear.
If I were but now on my Feraunt, with m