e oak roots and curtsied low. "Sir
Mortimer Ferne," she said, and rising to her full height, met his eyes
with that deeper gaze of hers.

Ferne advanced, and bending his knee to the short turf, took and kissed
her hand. "Fair and sweet lady," he said, "I made suit to your brother,
and he has given me, his friend, this happy chance. Now I make my
supplication to you, to whom I would be that, and more. All this week
have I vainly sought for speech with you alone. But now these blessed
trees hem us round; there is none to spy or listen--and here is a mossy
bank, fit throne for a faery queen. Will you hear me speak?"

The maid of honor looked at him with rose bloom upon her cheeks, and in
her eyes, although they smiled, a moisture as of half-sprung tears. "Is
it of Henry?" she asked. "Ah, sir, you have been so good to him! He is
very dear to me.... I would that I could thank you--"

As she spoke she moved with him to the green bank, sat down, and clasped
her hands about her knees. The man who on the morrow should leave behind
him court and court ways, and all fair sights such as this, leaned
against the oak and looked down upon her. When, after a little silence,
he began to speak, it was like a right courtier of the day.

"Fair Mistress Damaris," he said, "your brother is my friend, but to-day
I would speak of my friend's friend, and that is myself, and your
servant, lady. To-morrow I go from this garden of the world, this
no-other Paradise, this court where Dian reigns, but where Venus comes
as a guest, her boy in her hand. Where I go I know not, nor what thread
Clotho is spinning. Strange dangers are to be found in strange places,
and Jove and lightning are not comfortable neighbors. Ulysses took moly
in his hand when there came to meet him Circe's gentlemen pensioners,
and Gyges's ring not only saved him from peril, but brought him wealth
and great honor. What silly mariner in my ship hath not bought or begged
mithridate or a pinch of achimenius wherewith to make good his voyage?
And shall not I, who have much more at stake, procure me an
enchantment?"

The lady's fringed lids lifted in one swift upward glance. "Your valor,
sir, should prove your surest charm. But there is the new alchemist--"

"He cannot serve my need, hath not what I want. I want--" He hesitated
for a moment; then spoke on with a certain restrained impetuosity that
became him well: "There is a honey-wax which, being glazed about the
heart, holdet