n the story to him, greatly to his edification; and
they went on to King Arthur, and he did his best to narrate the German
reading of Sir Parzival. The difficulties engrossed them till the
rose-water was brought in silver bowls to wash their fingers, on which
Sigismund, after observing and imitating the two ladies, remarked that
they had no such Schwarmerci in Deutschland, and Yolande looked as if
she could well believe it, while Elleen, though ignorant of the meaning
of his word, laughed and said they had as little in Scotland.

There was still an hour of daylight to come, and moon-rise would not
be far off, so that the hosts proposed to adjourn to the garden, where
fresh music awaited them.

King Rene was an ardent gardener. His love of flowers was viewed as one
of his weaknesses, only worthy of an old Abbot, but he went his own way,
and the space within the walls of his castle at Nanci was lovely with
bright spring flowers, blossoming trees, and green walks, where, as Lady
Suffolk said, her grandfather could have mused all day and all night
long, to the sound of the nightingales.

But what the sisters valued it for was that they could ramble away
together to a stone bench under the wall, and there sit at perfect ease
together and pour out their hearts to one another. Margaret, indeed,
touched them as they leant against her as if to convince herself of
their reality, and yet she said that they knew not what they did when
they put the sea between themselves and Scotland, nor how sick the heart
could be for its bonnie hills.

'O gin I could see a mountain top again, I feel as though I could lay
me down and die content. What garred ye come daundering to these weary
flats of France?'

'Ah, sister, Scotland is not what you mind it when our blessed father
lived!'

And they told her how their lives had been spent in being hurried from
one prison-castle to another.

'Prison-castles be not wanting here,' replied Margaret with a
sigh. Then, as Elleen held up a hand in delight at the thrill of a
neighbouring nightingale, she cried, 'What is yon sing-song, seesaw,
gurgling bird to our own bonnie laverock, soaring away to the sky,
without making such a wark of tuning his pipes, and never thinking
himself too dainty and tender for a wholesome frost or two! So Jamie
sent you off to seek for husbands here, did he? Couldna ye put up with a
leal Scot, like Glenuskie there?'

'There were too many of them,' said Jean.

'And n