And once he said, he was your liegeman sworn,
Since my lost mistress, weeping, to his charge
Trusted the babe she saw no more.--God help us!

Eliz. How did my mother die, nurse?

Isen. She died, my child.

Eliz. But how? Why turn away?
Too long I've guessed at some dread mystery
I may not hear: and in my restless dreams,
Night after night, sweeps by a frantic rout
Of grinning fiends, fierce horses, bodiless hands,
Which clutch at one to whom my spirit yearns
As to a mother. There's some fearful tie
Between me and that spirit-world, which God
Brands with his terrors on my troubled mind.
Speak! tell me, nurse! is she in heaven or hell?

Isen. God knows, my child: there are masses for her soul
Each day in every Zingar minster sung.

Eliz. But was she holy?--Died she in the Lord?
Isen [weeps]. O God! my child! And if I told thee all,
How couldst thou mend it?

Eliz. Mend it? O my Saviour!
I'd die a saint!
Win heaven for her by prayers, and build great minsters,
Chantries, and hospitals for her; wipe out
By mighty deeds our race's guilt and shame--
But thus, poor witless orphan! [Weeps.]

[Count Walter enters.]

Wal. Ah! my princess! accept your liegeman's knee;
Down, down, rheumatic flesh!

Eliz. Ah! Count Walter! you are too tall to kneel to little girls.

Wal. What? shall two hundredweight of hypocrisy bow down to his
four-inch wooden saint, and the same weight of honesty not worship
his four-foot live one? And I have a jest for you, shall make my
small queen merry and wise.

Isen. You shall jest long before she's merry.

Wal. Ah! dowers and dowagers again! The money--root of all evil.
What comes here? [A Page enters.]
A long-winged grasshopper, all gold, green, and gauze? How these
young pea-chicks must needs ape the grown peacock's frippery!
Prithee, now, how many such butterflies as you suck here together on
the thistle-head of royalty?

Page. Some twelve gentlemen of us, Sir--apostles of the blind
archer, Love--owning no divinity but almighty beauty--no faith, no
hope, no charity, but those which are kindled at her eyes.

Wal. Saints! what's all this?

Page. Ah, Sir! none but countrymen swear by the saints nowadays:
no oaths but allegorical ones, Sir, at the high table; as thus,--'By
the sleeve of beauty, Madam;' or again, 'By Love his martyrdoms, Sir
Count;' or to a potentate, 'As Jove's imperial mercy shall hear my
vows, High Mightiness.'

Wal. Where did the