the Court knew these children, and talked of their beauty
and growth as they had talked of their mother's.

"To be the mate of such a woman, the father of such heirs, is a fate a
man might pray God for," 'twas said. "Love has not grown stale with
them. Their children are the very blossoms of it. Her eyes are deeper
pools of love each year."

CHAPTER XXIII--"In One who will do justice, and demands that it shall be
done to each thing He has made, by each who bears His image"

'Twas in these days Sir Jeoffry came to his end, it being in such way as
had been often prophesied; and when this final hour came, there was but
one who could give him comfort, and this was the daughter whose youth he
had led with such careless evilness to harm.

If he had wondered at her when she had been my Lady Dunstanwolde, as her
Grace of Osmonde he regarded her with heavy awe. Never had she been able
to lead him to visit her at her house in town or at any other which was
her home. "'Tis all too grand for me, your Grace," he would say; "I am a
country yokel, and have hunted and drank, and lived too hard to look well
among town gentlemen. I must be drunk at dinner, and when I am in liquor
I am no ornament to a duchess's drawing-room. But what a woman you have
grown," he would say, staring at her and shaking his head. "Each time I
clap eyes on you 'tis to marvel at you, remembering what a baggage you
were, and how you kept from slipping by the way. There was Jack Oxon,
now," he added one day--"after you married Dunstanwolde, I heard a pretty
tale of Jack--that he had made a wager among his friends in town--he was
a braggart devil, Jack--that he would have you, though you were so
scornful; and knowing him to be a liar, his fellows said that unless he
could bring back a raven lock six feet long to show them, he had lost his
bet, for they would believe no other proof. And finely they scoffed at
him when he came back saying that he had had one, but had hid it away for
safety when he was drunk, and could not find it again. They so flouted
and jeered at him that swords were drawn, and blood as well. But though
he was a beauty and a crafty rake-hell fellow, you were too sharp for
him. Had you not had so shrewd a wit and strong a will, you would not
have been the greatest duchess in England, Clo, as well as the finest
woman."

"Nay," she answered--"in those days--nay, let us not speak of them! I
would blot them out--out."

As t