to the Dowager and her children, of whom little Richard was now eight
years old, while Isabel had just reached four. The keen eyes of the old
lady--much sharper mentally than physically--soon discerned the presence
of some new element in her daughter-in-law's mind. She closely
questioned Maude as to what had happened, or was about to happen; and
after a minute's hesitation, Maude told her all she knew and feared.
For some time after receiving this information, Elizabeth Le Despenser
sat gazing uneasily from the lattice, with unwontedly idle hands.

"Sister's son unto our adversary!" she murmured to herself at last.
"Whither shall this tend? Verily, there is One stronger than Thomas de
Arundel. Is He leading us blind by a way that we know not?--for in very
sooth _I_ cannot discern the way. If so it be, then--Lord, lead Thou
on!"

Kent paid his visit to Cardiff in the winter, accompanied by Constance's
pet brother, Lord Richard of Conisborough, who had been promoted to his
father's old dignity of Earl of Cambridge. It was the first time that
the Dowager had seen either; and she afterwards communicated her
impressions of the pair to Maude, as they sat together at work.

"As touching the Lord Richard, he is gent and courteous enough; he were
no ill companion, an' he knew his own mind a little better. Mayhap
three of him, or four, might make a man amongst them."

For Cambridge, though in a much fainter degree, reflected his father's
character by finding it very difficult to say no.

"And what thinks your Ladyship of my Lord of Kent?" asked Maude with
some anxiety.

The Dowager shook the loose threads from her work with a peculiar little
laugh.

"Marry, my maid, what think I of my Lord of Kent his barber, and his
tailor?" said she; "for they made my Lord of Kent betwixt them. He is
not a man of God's making."

"But think you, Madam, he is to be trusted or no?"

"Trusted!--for what? To oil his golden locks, and perfume well his
sudary, and have his sleeves of the newest cutting? Ay, forsooth, and
that right worthily!"

"I meant," explained Maude, "to have a care of our Lady."

"Maybe he shall keep her in ointment for her hair," returned the
Dowager.

The Earl of Kent returned to Court, and for some time stayed there. He
was rather too busy to prosecute his wooing. The Lord Thomas of
Lancaster, one of the King's sons, was projecting and executing an
expedition from Calais to Sluys, and he took Kent