arriages for them, and graciously
blessing them, he bade them farewell, saying that the Lady of Suffolk
would come and arrange with them for the journey. No doubt, though he
might have been glad to place a niece on the throne, it would have been
fatal to the peace he so much desired for Henry to break his pledges to
so near a kinswoman of the King of France. And when the bag was opened,
and the rouleaux of gold and silver crowns displayed, his liberality
contradicted the current stories of his avarice.

And by and by arrived a succession of merchants bringing horned hoods,
transparent veils, like wings, supported on wire projections, long
trained dresses of silk and sendal, costly stomachers, bands of velvet,
buckles set with precious stones, chains of gold and silver--all the
fashions, in fact, enough to turn the head of any young lady, and in
which the staid Lady Prioress seemed to take quite as much interest as
if she had been to wear them herself--indeed, she asked leave to send
Sister Mabel to fetch a selection of the older nuns given to needlework
and embroidery to enjoy the exhibition, though it was to be carefully
kept out of sight of the younger ones, and especially of the novices.

The excitement was enough to put the Cardinal's offences out of mind,
while the delightful fitting and trying on occupied the maidens, who
looked at themselves in the little hand-mirrors held up to them by the
admiring nuns, and demanded every one's opinion. Jean insisted that
Annis should have her share, and Eleanor joined in urging it, when Dame
Lilias shook her head, and said that was not the use the Lord Cardinal
intended for his gold.

'He gave it to us to do as we would with it,' argued Eleanor.

'And she is our maiden, and it befits us not that she should look like
ane scrub,' added Jean, in the words used by her brother's descendant, a
century later.

'I thank you, noble cousins,' replied Annis, with a little haughtiness,
'but Davie would never thole to see me pranking it out of English gold.'

'She is right, Jeanie,' cried Eleanor. 'We will make her braw with what
we bought at York with gude Scottish gold.'

'All the more just,' added Jean, 'that she helped us in our need with
her ain.'

'And we are sib--near cousins after a',' added Eleanor; 'so we may well
give and take.'

So it was settled, and all was amicable, except that there was a slight
contest between the sisters whether they should dress alike, as Elean