ummer passed very quietly at Cardiff, except for one incident.
Maude spent it in learning to read, for which she had always had a
strong wish, and now coaxed Father Ademar to teach her. The confessor
was a Lollard, and was therefore not deterred by any fear of her
becoming acquainted with forbidden books. He willingly complied with
Maude's wish.

The incident which disturbed the calm was a hostile visit of Owain
Glyndwr, who appeared with a large force on the tenth of July, and held
the Church of Saint Mary against all comers, until driven out with great
slaughter. On the very morning of his appearance, the last baby came to
Cardiff Castle--a baby which would never see its father. The Bishop of
Llandaff, who was a guest in the Castle, was obliged to reconsecrate the
church before the child could be christened. It was not till late in
the evening that the little lady was baptised by the name of Isabel,
after the dead Infanta. She might have been born to illustrate
Bertram's observations, for her heart was as hard as a stone, and as
cold.

When Maude became able to read well, she was installed in the post of
daily reader to the Dowager. Constance had never cared for books; but
the old lady, who had been a great reader for her time, missed her usual
luxury now that age was dimming her eyes, and was very glad to employ
Maude's younger sight. The book was nearly always one of Wycliffe's,
and the reading invariably closed with a chapter of his Testament. Now
and then, but only now and then, she would ask for a little poetry--
taking by preference that courtly writer whom she knew as a great
innovator, but whom we call the father of English poetry. But she was
very particular which of his poems was selected. The Knight's, the
Squire's, the Man of Law's, the Prioress's, and the Clerk's Tales, were
all that she would have of that book by which we know Geoffrey Chaucer
best. She liked better the graceful fairy tale of the Flower and the
Leaf, written for the deceased Lollard Queen; and best of all that most
pathetic lamentation for the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, whom
Elizabeth Le Despenser had known personally in her youth. Maude would
never have suspected the Dowager of the least respect for poetry; and
she was surprised to watch her sit by the open casement, dreamily
looking out on the landscape, while she read to her of the "white
ycrowned Queen" of the Daisy, or of the providential interpositions by
which "C