le as ever was born in a palace.'

'She is so very fair, then?' said Lilies, who was of course on the side
of true love. 'You have seen her, gentle Sir? Oh, tell us what are her
beauties?'

'Fair damsel,' said Sir James, in a much more gentle tone, 'you forget
that I am only a poor prisoner, who have only now and then viewed the
lady Joan Beaufort with distant reverence, as destined to be my queen.
All I can tell is, that her walk and bearing mark her out for a throne.'

'And oh!' cried Malcolm, 'is it not true that the King hath composed
songs and poems in her honour?'

'Pah!' muttered Patrick; 'as though the King would be no better than a
wandering minstrel rhymester!'

'Or than King David!' dryly said Sir James.

'It is true, then, Sir,' exclaimed Lilias. 'He doth verily add
minstrelsy to his other graces? Know you the lines, Sir? Can you sing
them to us? Oh, I pray you.'

'Nay, fair maid,' returned Sir James, 'methinks I might but add to the
scorn wherewith Sir Patrick is but too much inclined to regard the
captive King.'

'A captive, a captive--ay, minstrelsy is the right solace for a captive,'
said Patrick; 'at least, so they say and sing. Our king will have better
work when he gains his freedom. Only there will come before me a
subtilty I once saw in jelly and blanc-mange, at a banquet in France,
where a lion fell in love with a hunter's daughter, and let her, for
love's sake, draw his teeth and clip his claws, whereupon he found
himself made a sport for her father's hounds.'

'I promise you, Sir Patrick,' replied the guest, 'that the Lady Joan is
more hike to send her Lion forth from the hunter's toils, with claws and
teeth fresh-whetted by the desire of honour.

'But the lay--the hay, Sir,' entreated Lilias; 'who knows that it may not
win Patrick to be the Lady Joan's devoted servant? Malcolm, your harp!'

Malcolm had already gone in quest of the harp he loved all the better for
the discouragement thrown on his gentle tastes.

The knight leant back, with a pensive look softening his features as he
said, after a little consideration, 'Then, fair lady, I will sing you the
song made by King James, when he had first seen the fair mistress of his
heart, on the slopes of Windsor, looking from his chamber window. He
feigns her to be a nightingale.'

'And what is that, Sir?' demanded Lilias. 'I have heard the word in
romances, and deemed it a kind of angel that sings by night.'

'It is a bir