his brow,
indeed, frowned no anger, upon his lip smiled no scorn. At that moment
all his haughty grief at the curse of circumstance which drove him to
his hereditary foe had vanished. Though Montagu had obtained from
Oxford some glimpse of the desire which the more sagacious and temperate
Lancastrians already entertained for that alliance, and though Louis
had already hinted its expediency to the earl, yet, till now, Warwick
himself had naturally conceived that the prince shared the enmity of his
mother, and that such a union, however politic, was impossible; but
now indeed there burst upon him the full triumph of revenge and pride.
Edward of York dared to woo Anne to dishonour, Edward of Lancaster dared
not even woo her as his wife till his crown was won! To place upon the
throne the very daughter the ungrateful monarch had insulted; to make
her he would have humbled not only the instrument of his fall, but the
successor of his purple; to unite in one glorious strife the wrongs
of the man and the pride of the father,--these were the thoughts that
sparkled in the eye of the king-maker, and flushed with a fierce rapture
the dark cheek, already hollowed by passion and care. He raised his
daughter from the floor, and placed her in her mother's arms, but still
spoke not.

"This, then, was thy secret, Anne," whispered the countess; "and I half
foreguessed it, when, last night, I knelt beside thy couch to pray, and
overheard thee murmur in thy dreams."

"Sweet mother, thou forgivest me; but my father--ah, he speaks not. One
word! Father, Father, not even his love could console me if I angered
thee!"

The earl, who had remained rooted to the spot, his eyes shining
thoughtfully under his dark brows, and his hand slightly raised, as
if piercing into the future, and mapping out its airy realm, turned
quickly,--

"I go to the heir of Lancaster; if this boy be bold and true, worthy of
England and of thee, we will change the sad ditty of that scrannel lute
into such a storm of trumpets as beseems the triumph of a conqueror and
the marriage of a prince!"

CHAPTER VIII. HOW THE HEIR OF LANCASTER MEETS THE KING-MAKER.

In truth, the young prince, in obedience to a secret message from the
artful Louis, had repaired to the court of Amboise under the name of the
Count de F----. The French king had long before made himself acquainted
with Prince Edward's romantic attachment to the earl's daughter, through
the agent employed b