e for some minutes. When the
subject seemed exhausted, York turned quickly round to his sister, as if
a sudden idea had occurred to him.

"Lady Custance! You remember my Lord of Kent, trow?--though methinks
you have scarce met together sithence we were all childre."

Constance lifted up her eyes, and offered her hand to Kent's kiss of
homage. Ay, to her utter misery and undoing, like Elaine--

--"she lifted up her eyes,
And loved him, with that love which was her doom."

Not worth such love as that, Constance! Not worth one beat of that true
heart which was stilled at Bristol, and which now lies, dust to dust, in
Tewkesbury Abbey. This man will not love you as he did, to the end. He
will only give you what love he can spare from himself, for he is his
own most cherished treasure. And it will be--as, a few hours later, you
whisper to yourself, pulling the petals from a white daisy--"_un
peu_--_beaucoup_--_point du tout_:"--a little yesterday, intense to-day,
and none at all to-morrow.

Constance and Kent saw a good deal of each other during her visit to
Westminster. Her brother of York evidently furthered his suit to the
utmost of his power. Maude, who had learned utterly to distrust the
Duke of York, set herself to consider what his reason could be. That
York rarely did any thing except with some ulterior and selfish object,
she was satisfied. But the more she thought about the matter, the
further she found herself from arriving at any conclusion. The secret
was to be revealed to her before long. The plotting brain of the Prince
was busy as usual in the concoction of another conspiracy, and to
forward his purposes on this occasion he intended to make a catspaw of
his sister. The plot was not yet quite ripe; but when it should be, for
Constance to be Kent's wife would make her all the more eligible as a
tool.

The ceremonies attendant on the royal marriage were over; the King was
about to take the field against another insurrection of Glyndwr, and the
Earl of Kent had undertaken to guard him to Shrewsbury. Maude, in close
attendance on her mistress, heard the parting words between Kent and
Constance.

"You will render me visit at Cardiff, my Lord?"

"Sweet Lady, were it possible I could neglect such bidding?"

Constance journeyed in the royal train for a distance, and turned off
towards Cardiff, when their ways parted.

Her manner when she arrived at home was particularly affectionate, both