liam's
court, not one that approached her father in nobility of bearing or
manly strength--not even her husband.

Her husband? Yes. For this little maid of thirteen had been for eight
years the wife of the Dauphin of France, the young Prince John of
Touraine, to whom she had been married when she was scarce five years
old and he barely nine. Surrounded by all the pomp of an age of glitter
and display, these royal children lived in their beautiful castle of
Quesnoy, in Flanders,(1) when they were not, as at the time of our
story, residents at the court of the powerful Count William of Holland.

(1) Now Northeastern France.

Other young people were there, too,--nobles and pages and little
ladies-in-waiting; and there was much of the stately ceremonial and
flowery talk that in those days of knighthood clothed alike the fears of
cowards and the desires of heroes. For there have always been heroes and
cowards in the world.

And so, between all these young folk, there was much boastful talk and
much harmless gossip how the little Lady of Courtrai had used the wrong
corner of the towel yesterday; how the fat Duchess of Enkhuysen had
violated the laws of all etiquette by placing the wrong number of
finger-bowls upon her table on St. Jacob's Day; and how the stout young
Hubert of Malsen had scattered the rascal merchants of Dort at their
Shrovetide fair.

Then uprose the young Lord of Arkell.

"Hold, there!" he cried hotly. "This Hubert of Malsen is but a craven,
sirs, if he doth say the merchants of Dort are rascal cowards. Had they
been fairly mated, he had no more dared to put his nose within the gates
of Dort than dare one of you here to go down yonder amid Count William's
lions!"

"Have a care, friend Otto," said the little Lady of Holland, with
warning finger; "there is one here, at least, who dareth to go amid the
lions--my father, sir."

"I said nothing of him, madam," replied Count Otto. "I did mean these
young red hats here, who do no more dare to bait your father's lions
than to face the Cods of Dort in fair and equal fight."

At this bold speech there was instant commotion. For the nobles and
merchants of Holland, four centuries and a half ago, were at open strife
with one another. The nobles saw in the increasing prosperity of the
merchants the end of their own feudal power and tyranny. The merchants
recognized in the arrogant nobles the only bar to the growth of
Holland's commercial enterprise. So eac