tamely to submit?' she asked.

'Patience is the armour and conquest of the godly,' said Henry, quoting
a saying that was to serve 'the meek usurper' well in after-times.

'May not patience go too far?' said Eleanor.

'In this world, mayhap,' said he; 'scarcely so in that which is to
come.'

'I would not be the King's bride to hear him say so,' laughed the Lady
of Suffolk. 'Shall I tell her, my lord, that this is your Grace's ladder
to carry her to heaven?'

Henry blushed like a girl, and said that he trusted never to be so
lacking in courtesy as the knight; and the King of Wight, wishing to
change the subject, mentioned that the Lady Eleanor had sung or said
certain choice ballads, and Henry eagerly entreated for one. It was the
pathetic 'Wife of Usher's Well' that Eleanor chose, with the three sons
whose hats were wreathen with the birk that

'Neither grew in dyke nor ditch,
Nor yet in any shaugh,
But at the gates of Paradise
That birk grew fair eneugh.'

Henry was greatly delighted with the verse, and entreated her, if it
were not tedious, to repeat it over again.

In return he promised to lend her some of the translations from the
Latin of Lydgate, the Monk of Bury, and sent them, wrapped in a silken
neckerchief, by the hands of one of his servants to the convent.

'Was that a token?' anxiously asked young Douglas, riding up to David
Drummond, as they got into order to ride back to Winchester House, after
escorting the ladies to St. Helen's.

'Token, no; 'tis a book for Lady Elleen. Never fash yourself, man; the
King, so far as I might judge, is far more taken with Elleen than ever
he is with Jean. He seems but a bookish sort of bodie of Malcolm's
sort.'

'My certie, an' that be sae, we may look to winning back Roxburgh and
Berwick!' returned the Douglas, his eye flashing. 'He's welcome to Lady
Elleen! But that ane should look at her in presence of her sister! He
maun be mair of a monk than a man!'

Such was, in truth, Jean's own opinion when she flounced into her
chamber at the Priory and turned upon her sister.

'Weel, Elleen, and I hope ye've had your will, and are a bit shamed,
taking up his Grace so that none by yersell could get in a word wi'
him.'

'Deed, Jeanie, I could not help it; if he would ask me about our
ballants and buiks, that ye would never lay your mind to--'

'Ballants and buiks! Bonnie gear for a k