e is a crowned queen, brother Gervase," my father interrupted;
"and moreover she is the noblest woman in the world."

"As to that, brother," returned my uncle, "I am saying nothing.
But speaking of what I know, I say she can be but poorly conversant
with your worldly affairs."

My father half-lifted himself from his seat. "And is that how you
take it?" he demanded sharply. "Is that all you read in the letter?
Brother, I tell you again, this lady is a queen. What should a queen
know of my degree of poverty?"

"Nevertheless--" began my uncle.

But my father cut him short again. "I had hoped," said he,
reproachfully, "you would have been prompt to recognize her noble
confidence. Mark you how, no question put, she honours me.
'Do this, for my sake'--Who but the greatest in the world can appeal
thus simply?"

"None, maybe," my uncle replied; "as none but the well-to-do can
answer with a like ease."

"You come near to anger me, brother; but I remember that you never
knew her. Is not this house large? Are not four-fifths of my rooms
lying at this moment un-tenanted? Very well; for so long as it
pleases them, since she claims it, these holy men shall be our
guests. No more of this," my father commanded peremptorily, and
added, with all the gravity in the world, "You should thank her
consideration rather, that she sends us visitors so frugal, since
poverty degrades us to these economies. But there is one thing
puzzles me." He took the letter again from my uncle and fastened his
gaze on the Brother Basilio. "She says she has much ado to protect
herself."

"Indeed, Sir John," answered Brother Basilio, "I fear the queen, our
late liege-lady, speaks somewhat less than the truth. She wrote to
you from a poor lodging hard by Bastia, having ventured back to
Corsica out of Tuscany on business of her own; and on the eve of
sailing we heard that she had been taken prisoner by the Genoese."

"What!" My father rose, clutching the arms of his chair. Of stone
they were, like the chair itself, and well mortised: but his great
grip wrenched them out of their mortises and they crashed on the
dais. "What! You left her a prisoner of the Genoese!" He gazed
around them in a wrath that slowly grew cold, freezing into contempt.
"Go, sirs; since she commands it, room shall be found for you all.
My house for the while is yours. But go from me now."

[1] Tilled, planted.

CHAPTER VI.

HOW MY FATHER OUT OF NOTHING