es, on the hill-side. Is it the case, that we could all be
perfect, if only we tried, and entreated the grace of our Lord to enable
us to be so?"

"Did your Ladyship ever know any who was?" asked Margaret.

The Lady Joan shook her head. "Never--not perfect. My mother was a
good woman enough; but there were flaws in her. She was cleverer than
my father, and she let him feel it. He was nearer perfection than she,
for he was humbler and gentler--God rest his sweet soul! Yet she was a
good woman, for all that: but--no, not perfect!"

Suddenly she ceased, and a light came in her eyes.

"You two," she said, looking on us, "are the Despenser ladies, I
believe?"

We assented.

"Do you mind telling me--pardon me if I should not ask--which of you was
affianced, long years ago, to the Lord Lawrence de Hastings, sometime
Earl of Pembroke?"

"Sometime!" ah me, then my lost love is no more!

I felt as though my tongue refused to speak. Something was coming--
what, I did not know.

Margaret answered for me, and the Lady Joan's hand fell softly on mine.

"Did you love each other," she said, "when you were little children? If
so, we ought to love each other, for he was very dear to me. Mother
Annora, he was my father."

"You!" I just managed to say.

"Ah, you did, I think," she said, quietly. "He died a young man, in the
first great visitation of the Black Death, over twenty years ago: and my
mother survived him twenty years. She married again, and died three
years since."

Margaret asked what I wanted to hear. I was very glad, for I felt as if
I could ask nothing. It was strange how Margaret seemed to know just
what I wished.

"Who was your mother, my Lady?"

The Lady Joan coloured, and did not answer for a moment. Then she
said,--"I fear you will not like to know it: yet it was not her fault,
nor his. Queen Isabel arranged it all: and she hath answered for her
own sins at the Judgment Bar. My mother was Agnes de Mortimer, daughter
of the Earl of March."

"Why not?" said Margaret.

"Ah, then you know not. I scarce expected a Despenser to hear his name
with patience. But I suppose you were so young--Sisters, he was the
great enemy of your father."

So they wedded my lost love to the daughter of my enemy! Almost before
the indignation rose up within me, there came to counteract it a vision
of the cross of Calvary, and of Him who said, "Father, forgive them!"
The momentary feeling of anger died