could talk no more, pulled forth a huge rosary of
wooden beads, from which the paint was nearly worn away, and began
muttering Ave Marys in apparently interminable succession. "Now,
Isabel," said Constance, "prithee do me to wit of divers matters I would
fain know. Mind thou, I have been shut up from all manner of tidings,
good or ill, sithence this last March, and I have a sumpter-mule's load
of questions to ask at thee. But, first of all, how earnest thou
hither?"

"Maybe thou shalt find so much in the answers to thy questions," replied
Isabel--a smile parting her lips which had in it more keenness than
mirth.

"Well, then, to fall to:--Where is my Lord?"

"In Tewkesbury Abbey, as methought."

"A truce to thy fooling, child! Thou wist well enough that I would say
my Lord of Kent."

"How lookest I should wit, Custance? We sisters of Saint Clare be no
news-mongers.--Well, so far as I knowledge, my Lord of Kent is with the
Court. I saw him at Westminster a month gone."

"Is it well with him?"

"Very well, I would say, from what I saw." Constance's mind was too
much engrossed with her own thoughts to put the right interpretation on
that cold, mocking smile which kept flitting across her cousin's lips.

"And wist where be my little Dickon, and Nib?" [Isabel].

"At Langley, in care of Philippa, our fair cousin," [then synonymous
with relative].

"Good. And Dickon my brother?"

"I scantly wis--marry, methinks with the Court, at this present."

"And my brother Ned?"

"In Pevensey Castle."

"What, governor thereof?"

But Constance guessed her cousin's answer.

"Nay,--prisoner."

"For this matter?"

"Ay, for the like gear thyself art hither."

"Truly, I am sorry. And what came of our cousins of March?"

"What had come aforetime."

"They be had back to their durance at Windsor?"

"Ay."

"And what did my Lord when thou sawest him? Arede me all things
touching him. What ware he?--and what said he?--and how looked he?
Knew he thou shouldst see me?--and sent he me no word by thee?"

"Six questions in a breath, Custance!"

"Go to--one after other. What ware he?"

"By my mistress Saint Clare! how should I wit? An hundred yards of
golden baudekyn, and fifty of pink velvet; and pennes [plumes] of
ostriches enough to set up a peltier [furrier] in trade."

"And how looked he?"

"As his wont is--right goodly, and preux [brave] and courteous."

"Ay so!" said Constance tenderly. "And kn