one, and Maude felt more inclined to cry than ever.

"Is that saying truth no longer, Maude?"

Maude's conscience whispered to her that she must not say any thing of
the sort. Still she thought it only proper to hold out a little longer.
She was silent; and Bertram, who thought she was coming round, let her
alone for a short time. The grey towers of Cardiff slowly rose to view,
and in a few seconds more they would no longer be alone.

"Well, Maude?" asked Bertram softly. "Is it ay or nay?"

"As you will, Master Lyngern."

This was Bertram's wooing; and Maude wondered, when she was alone, if
any woman had been so wooed before.

Constance expressed the greatest satisfaction when she heard of her
bower-woman's approaching marriage; but one item of Bertram's project
she commanded altered--namely, that Maude's nuptials should not take
place on the same day as her own.

"Why, Maude!" she said, "if our two weddings be one day, I shall have
but an half-day's rejoical, and thou likewise! Nay, good maid! we will
have each her full day, and a bonfire in the base court, and feasting,
and dancing to boot. Both on one day, quotha! marry, but that were
niggardly."

So Maude was married on the Saturday previous to her mistress. She was
dressed in lilac damask, trimmed with swansdown, and her hair, for the
last time in her life, streamed over her shoulders and fell at its own
sweet will. Matrons always tucked away their hair in the dove-cote,
while widows were careful not to show a single lock. Bertram exhibited
extraordinary splendour, for he was generally rather careless about his
dress. He wore a red damask gown, trimmed with rabbit's fur; a bright
blue under-tunic; a pair of red boots with white buttons; and he bore in
his hand a copped hat of blue serge. The copped hat had no brim, and
was about a foot and a half in height. Bertram's appearance, therefore,
to say the least, was striking.

When the ceremony was just completed, without any previous intimation,
the Duke of York, who was present, drew his sword, and lightly struck
the shoulder of the bridegroom, before he could rise from his knees.

"Rise, Sir Bertram Lyngern!"

So Maude became entitled at once to the honourable prefix of "Dame."

The grander wedding was on the following Thursday. The Earl of Kent's
costume baffles description. Suffice it to say that it cost two
thousand pounds. The royal bride doffed her widow's weeds, and appeared
in a c