the more that the King was paying more attention to the book and the
far less beautiful Eleanor, than to her and the invitation was accepted.

The convent bell rang for nones, and the King joined the devotions of
the nuns, though he was not admitted within the choir; and just as
these were over, the Countess of Salisbury arrived to take the Lady of
Glenuskie to see their old friend, the Mother Clare at St. Katharine's,
bringing a sober palfrey for her conveyance.

'A holy woman, full of alms-deeds,' said the King. 'The lady is happy in
her friendship.'

Which words were worth much to Lady Drummond, for the Prioress sent a
lay-sister to invite Mother Clare to a refection at the convent.

CHAPTER 5. THE MEEK USURPER

'Henry, thou of holy birth,
Thou to whom thy Windsor gave
Nativity and name and grave!
Heavily upon his head
Ancestral crimes were visited.'--SOUTHEY.

It suits not with the main thread of our story to tell of the happy and
peaceful meetings between the Lady of Glenuskie and her old friend, who
had given up almost princely rank and honour to become the servant
of the poor and suffering strangers at the wharves of London. To Dame
Lilias, Mother Clare's quiet cell at St. Katharine's was a blessed haven
of rest, peace, and charity, such as was neither the guest-chamber nor
the Prioress's parlour at St. Helen's, with all the distractions of
the princesses' visitors and invitations, and with the Lady Joanna
continually pulling against the authority that the Cardinal, her uncle,
was exerting over his nieces.

His object evidently was to keep them back, firstly, from the York
party, and secondly, from the King, under pretext of their mourning for
their mother; and in this he might have succeeded but for the interest
in them that had been aroused in Henry by his companion, namesake, and
almost brother, the King of Wight. The King came or sent each day to St.
Helen's to arrange about the requiem at Westminster, and when their late
travelling companions invited the young ladies to dinner or to supper
expressly to meet the King and the Cardinal--not in state, but at
what would be now called a family party--Beaufort had no excuse for a
refusal, such as he could not give without dire offence. And, indeed, he
was even then obliged to yield to the general voice, and, recalling his
own nephew from Normandy, send the Duke of York to defend the remnant of
the English conquests.