ueen
Joanna and her old English nurse Ankaret, who had remained beside her
through all the troubles of the stormy and barbarous country, and,
though crippled by a fall and racked with rheumatism, was the chief
comfort of the young children. She crouched at the hearth with her
spinning and her beads, and exclaimed at the tossed hair and soiled
hands and faces of her charges.

Mary brought the little ones to her to be set to rights, and the elder
girls did their best with their toilette. Princesses as they were, the
ruddy golden tresses of Eleanor and the flaxen locks of Jean and Mary
were the only ornaments that they could boast of as their own; and
though there were silken and embroidered garments of their mother's in
one of the chests, their mourning forbade the use of them. The girls
only wore the plain black kirtles that had been brought from Haddington
at the time of the funeral, and the little boys had such homespun
garments as the shepherd lads wore.

Partly scolding, partly caressing, partly bemoaning the condition of her
young ladies, so different from the splendours of the house of Somerset,
Ankaret saw that Eleanor was as fit to be seen as circumstances would
permit; as to Jean and Mary, there was no trouble on that score.

The whole was not accomplished till a horn was sounded as an intimation
that supper was ready, at five o'clock, for the entire household, and
all made their way down--Jean first, in all the glory of her fair face
and beautiful hair; then Eleanor with little Lorn, as he was called, his
Christian name being James; then Annaple and Johnnie hand-in-hand, Mary
carrying Andrew, and lastly old Ankaret, hobbling along with her stick,
and, when out of sight, a hand on Annaple's shoulder. In public, nothing
would have made her presume so far. The hall was a huge, vaulted,
stone-walled room, with a great fire on the wide hearth, and three long
tables--one was cross-wise, on the dais near the fire, the other two ran
the length of the hall. The upper one was furnished with tolerably clean
napery and a few silver vessels; as to the lower ones, they were in two
degrees of comparison, and the less said of the third the better. It was
for the men-at-arms and the lowest servants, whereas the second belonged
to those of the suite of the King and Chancellor, who were not of rank
to be at his table. The Lord Lion King-at-Arms was high-table company,
but he was absent, and the inferior royal pursuivant was ent