hen, when we have
done service approaching to be worthy of her, then it may be that I
shall have earned at least a look or sign."

"Alas! sir," said Cicely, "how can I give you false hopes?" For her
honest heart burnt to tell the poor fellow that she would in case of
his success be farther removed from him than ever.

"What would be false now shall be true then. I will wring love from
thee by my deeds for her whom we both alike love, and then wilt thou be
mine own, my true Bride!"

By this time other guests had arrived, and the dinner was ready.
Babington was, in deference to the Countess, allowed to sit next to his
lady-love. She found he had been at Sheffield, and had visited
Bridgefield, vainly endeavouring to obtain sanction to his addresses
from her adopted parents. He saw how her eyes brightened and heard how
her voice quivered with eagerness to hear of what still seemed home to
her, and he was pleased to feel himself gratifying her by telling her
how Mrs. Talbot looked, and how Brown Dumpling had been turned out in
the Park, and Mr. Talbot had taken a new horse, which Ned had insisted
on calling "Fulvius," from its colour, for Ned was such a scholar that
he was to be sent to study at Cambridge. Then he would have wandered
off to little Lady Arbell's being put under Master Sniggius's tuition,
but Cicely would bring him back to Bridgefield, and to Ned's brothers.

No, the boasted expedition to Spain had not begun yet. Sir Francis
Drake was lingering about Plymouth, digging a ditch, it was said, to
bring water from Dartmoor. He would never get license to attack King
Philip on his own shores. The Queen knew better than to give it.
Humfrey and Diccon would get no better sport than robbing a ship or two
on the way to the Netherlands. Antony, for his part, could not see
that piracy on the high seas was fit work for a gentleman.

"A gentleman loves to serve his queen and country in all places," said
Cicely.

"Ah!" said Antony, with a long breath, as though making a discovery,
"sits the wind in that quarter?"

"Antony," exclaimed she, in her eagerness calling him by the familiar
name of childhood, "you are in error. I declare most solemnly that it
is quite another matter that stands in your way."

"And you will not tell me wherefore you are thus cruel?"

"I cannot, sir. You will understand in time that what you call cruelty
is true kindness."

This was the gist of the interview. All the rest only r