him King! Was he King Harry
himself?'

'Oh no,' said Dame Lilias, smiling; 'only King Harry of the Isle of
Wight--a bit place about the bigness of Arran; but it pleased the
English King to crown him and give him a ring, and bestow on him the
realm in a kind of sport. He is, in sooth, Harry Beauchamp, Earl of
Warwick, and was bred up as the King's chief comrade and playfellow.'

'And what brings him here?'

'So far as I can yet understand, the family and kin have gathered for
the marriage of his sister, the Lady Anne--the red-cheeked maiden in the
rose-coloured kirtle--to the young Sir Richard Nevil, the same who gave
his hand to thee, Annis--the son of my Lord of Salisbury.'

'That was the old knight who led thee in, mother,' said Annis. 'Did you
say he was brother to the Duchess?'

'Even so. There were fifteen or twenty Nevils of Raby--he was one of the
eldest, she one of the youngest. Their mother was a Beaufort, aunt to
yours.'

'Oh, I shall never unravel them!' exclaimed Eleanor, spreading out her
hands in bewilderment.

Lady Drummond laughed, having come to the time of life when ladies enjoy
genealogies.

'It will be enough,' she said, 'to remember that almost all are, like
yourselves, grandchildren or great-grandchildren to King Edward of
Windsor.'

Jean, however, wanted to know which were nearest to herself, and which
were noblest. The first question Lady Drummond said she could hardly
answer; perhaps the Earl of Salisbury and the Duchess, but the Duke was
certainly noblest by birth, having a double descent from King Edward,
and in the male line.

'Was not his father put to death by this King's father?' asked Eleanor.

'Ay, the Earl of Cambridge, for a foul plot. I have heard my Lord of
Salisbury speak of it; but this young man was of tender years, and
King Harry of Monmouth did not bear malice, but let him succeed to the
dukedom when his uncle was killed in the Battle of Agincourt.'

'They have not spirit here to keep up a feud,' said Jean.

'My good brother--ay, and your father, Jeanie--were wont to say they
were too Christian to hand on a feud,' observed Dame Lilias, at which
Jean tossed her head, and said--

'That may suit such a carpet-knight as yonder Duke. He is not so tall as
Elleen there, nor as his own Duchess.'

'I do not like the Duchess,' said Annis; 'she looks as if she scorned
the very ground she walks on.'

'She is wondrous bonnie, though,' said Eleanor; 'and so was the bairni