ery vision which she had
imagined on the dreary tower of Dunbar. Here was the warm spring sun,
shining on a scene of unequalled beauty and brilliancy, set in the
spring foliage and blossom, whence, as if to rival the human performers,
gushes of nightingales' song came in every interval. Hearing Eleanor's
eager question whether that were the nightingale whose liquid trillings
she heard, King Rene realised that the Scottish maidens knew not the
note, and signed to the minstrels to cease for a time, then came and sat
on a cushion beside the young lady, and enjoyed her admiration.

'Ah!' she said, 'that is the king of the minstrel birds.'

He smiled. 'The royal lady then has her orders and ranks for the birds.'

'Oh yes. If the royal eagle is the king, and the falcon is the true
knight, the nightingale and mavis, merle and lark, are the minstrels.
And the lovely seagull, oh, how call you it?--with the long white
floating wings rising and falling, is the graceful dancer.'

'Guifette,' Rene gave the word, 'or in Provence, Rondinel della
mar--hirondelle de la mer!'

'Swallow! Ah, the pilgrim birds, who visit the Holy Land.'

'Lady, you should be of our court of the troubadours,' said Rene; 'your
words should be a poem.'

He was called away at the moment, and craved her licence so politely
that the chivalrous minstrel king seemed to Elleen all she had dreamt
of. The whole was perfect, nothing wanting save that for which her
heart was all the time beating high, the presence of her beloved
sister Margaret. It was as if a scene out of a romance of fairyland
had suddenly taken reality, and she more than once closed her eyes and
squeezed her hands to try whether she was awake.

A fanfaron of trumpets came on the wind, and all were on the alert,
while Eleanor's heart throbbed so that she could hardly stand, and
caught at Margaret's arm, as she murmured with a gasp, 'My sister! My
sister!'

'Ah! you are happy to meet once more,' said Margaret. 'The saints only
know whether Yolande and I shall ever see one another's faces again when
once I am carried away to your dreary England.'

'England is not mine, lady,' said Eleanor, rather sharply. 'We reckon
the English as our bitterest foes.'

'You have come with an Englishman though,' said Margaret, 'whom I am to
take for my husband,' and she laughed a gay innocent laugh. A grizzled
old knight, whom I am not like to mistake for my true spouse. Have you
seen him? What like is he