ed her beauty, and set off the
lovely pink-and-white of her complexion, and the radiant hair, which was,
as she laughingly told her brother, 'the badge of the Sidneys.'

The profound stillness which brooded over Penshurst suited Lady Pembroke's
mood, and, looking out from the casement, she saw Lucy Forrester, playing
ball with her boy Will on the terrace. Lucy's light and agile figure was
seen to great advantage as she sprang forward or ran backward, to catch the
ball from the boy's hands. His laughter rang through the still air as, at
last, Lucy missed the catch, and then Lady Pembroke saw him run down the
steps leading to the pleasance below to meet George Ratcliffe, who was
coming in from the entrance on that side of the park.

Lady Pembroke smiled as she saw George advance with his cap in his hand
towards Lucy. His stalwart figure was set off by the short green tunic he
wore, and a sheaf of arrows at his side, and a bow strapped across his
broad shoulders, showed that he had been shooting in the woods.

Only a few words were exchanged, and then Lucy turned, and, leaving George
with little Will Herbert, she came swiftly toward the house, and Lady
Pembroke presently heard her quick, light tread in the corridor on which
her room opened.

'Madam!' Lucy said, entering breathlessly, 'I bear a letter from Humphrey
to his brother; it has great news for me. Mary has found her boy, and that
evil man, Ambrose Gifford, is dead. Will it please you to hear the letter.
I can scarcely contain my joy that Mary has found her child; he was her
idol, and I began to despair that she would ever set eyes on him again.'

Lady Pembroke was never too full of her own interests to be unable to enter
into those of her ladies and dependants.

'I am right glad, Lucy,' she said. 'Let me hear what good Humphrey has to
say, and, perchance, there will be mention of my brothers in the letter.
Read it, Lucy. I am all impatience to hear;' and Lucy read, not without
difficulty, the large sheet of parchment, which had been sent, with other
documents, from the seat of war by special messenger.

* * * * *

'To my good brother, George Ratcliffe, from before Zutphen,--'This to tell
you that I, making an expedition by order of my master, Sir Philip Sidney,
to reconnoitre the country before Zutphen, where, please God, we will in a
few days meet and vanquish the enemy, fell upon a farm-house, and entering,
asked whether the