hort of a divorce part them again.

"Now then, go to bed," said the Countess, addressing Doucebelle: "and
beware, every soul of you, that not a word comes out till I tell you ye
may speak."

"Belasez, when wilt thou be wed?" inquired Margaret, the next morning.
If the thoughts of the bride ran upon weddings, it was not much to be
wondered.

"Next summer," said Belasez, as coolly as if the question had been when
she would finish her embroidery. There was no shadow of emotion of any
kind to be seen.

"Oh, art thou handfast?" replied Margaret, interested at once.

"I was betrothed in my cradle," was the answer of the Jewish maiden.

"To a Jew, of course?"

"Of course! To Leo the son of Hamon of Norwich, my father's greatest
friend."

"Is he a nice young man?"

"I never saw him."

"Why, Belasez!"

"The maidens of my people are strictly secluded. It is not so with
Christians."

Yet it was less strange to these Christian girls than it would be to the
reader. They lived in times when the hand of an heiress was entirely at
the disposal of her guardian, who might marry her to some one whom she
had never seen. As to widows, they were in the gift of the Crown,
unless they chose (as many did) to make themselves safe by paying a high
price for "liberty to marry whom they would." Even then, such a thing
was known as the Crown disregarding the compact. Let it be added, since
much good cannot be said of King John, that he at least was careful to
fulfil his engagements of this description. His son was less
particular.

Margaret looked at Belasez with a rather curious expression.

"And how dost thou like the idea," she asked, "of being wife to one whom
thou hast never seen?"

"I do not think about it," said Belasez, in the same tone as before.
"What is to be will be."

"But what is to be," said Margaret, "may be very delightful, or it may
be very horrid."

"Yes, no doubt," was the cool answer. "I shall see when the time
comes."

Margaret turned away, with a shrug of her shoulders and a comic look in
her eyes which nearly upset the gravity of the rest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note 1. These lines are (or were) to be seen, written with a diamond
upon a pane of glass in a window of the Hotel des Pays-Bas, Spa,
Belgium, with the date 1793. I do not know whether they are to be found
in the writings of any poet.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE NEW CONFESSOR.