not to slumber, in the chamber that stood at
the head of the stair on which the door in the wainscot opened. Then she
and Marguerite retired by the other door to their own part of the upper
floor, where I fear the young lady received a lecture before she went to
her virgin couch.

ACT III.

THE STATES.

Next morning the Militia Captain left before the house was awake, to
return to Lempriere in London. When the ladies went, later in the
forenoon, to arrange the chamber in which he had passed the night, they
found that the bed had not been used during Le Gallais' occupation. A
copy of Ben Jonson's Poems lay on the table; by the side of which were
pen and ink, and a burnt-out candle. On opening the book, Mdlle. de St.
Martin found some lines written on the fly-leaf, which ran as follows:--

"What tho' the floures be riche and rare
of hue and fragrancie,
What tho' the giver be kinde and fair,
they have no charme for me.

The wreathe whose brightest budde is gone
is not ye wreathe I'de prise:
I'de pluck another, and so passe on,
with unregardfull eyes.

And so the heart whose sweet resorte
an hundred rivalls share
May yielde a moment's passing sporte,
but Love's an alyen there."

"He is unpolite, my sister," cried Marguerite, laughing. "But that is
only because he is sore. The wounded bird has moulted a feather in his
empty nest."

"All the same, he is flown," answered Mdme. de Maufant, gravely.

"_N'importe_," answered the damsel. "Leave him to me. I can whistle him
back when I want him--if I ever do."

Leaving the ladies to the discussion of the topic thus set afoot, let us
turn to the more prosaic combinations of the rougher, if not harder,
sex. _Majora canamus!_

About four miles south-east of the manor-house, the old Castle of Gorey
arose out of the sea, almost as if it grew there, a part of the granite
crag. A survival of the rude warfare of Plantagenet times, it bore--as
it still does--the self assertive name of "Mont Orgueil," and boasted
itself the only English fortress that had ever resisted the avenger of
France, the constable Bertrand du Guesclin. But, in spite of its pride,
it proved to be commanded by a yet higher point, sufficiently near to
throw round shot into the Castle in the more advanced days to which our
tale relates. For this reason, and also because of the smallness of the
harbour at its feet, Mont Orgueil had given