mean nothing disrespectful, madam, yet 'tis patent to every one. Why are we relegated to this dreary old chamber this brilliant afternoon, when my lord the Cardinal and all the foreign ambassadors are at the Palace? Why are we not allowed to join the others at tennis, or watch the gentlemen at bowls? Why were Helen and Margaret kept from seeing the jousts? Why? Why? Why?"
She was stamping her little foot, eager, impatient, excited. The Duchess felt somewhat bewildered before this hurricane of girlish wrath.
"Because Her Majesty ordered it thus, child," she said in a more conciliatory spirit; "she hath not always need of all her maids-of-honour round her."
"Nay! that's not the reason," rejoined Barbara, "and Your Grace is too clever to believe it."
"You are a silly child and – "
"Then we are all silly, for 'tis patent to us all. 'Tis Ursula who is being kept wilfully away from the Court, or rather from seeing His Grace of Wessex, and in order not to make these machinations too obvious, some of us are also relegated in the background in her company."
"And 'tis small wonder that Ursula should wish to catch sight of the man whom her father vowed she should wed or else enter into a convent," concluded Alicia defiantly.
Her Grace was at her wits' ends. Too clever not to have noticed the intrigue to which the girls now made reference, she would sooner have died than owned that her Queen was acting wrongfully or even pettily.
However, for the moment she was spared the further discussion of this unpleasant topic, for a long, merry, girlish laugh was suddenly heard echoing through the great chambers beyond.
"Hush!" said the Duchess with reassumed severity, "'tis that misguided child herself. Now remember, ladies, not a word of all this. I must learn the truth on this scandal, and will set a watch to-night. But not a word to her."
The next moment the subject of all this animated conversation threw open the heavy oak door of the room. She came running in, with her fair hair flying in a deliriously mad tangle round her shoulders, her eyes dancing with glee, whilst above her head she was, with one small hand, flourishing a small piece of paper, the obvious cause of this apparently uncontrollable fit of girlish merriment.
CHAPTER XI
THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL
The Duchess was frowning for all she was worth. Alicia and Barbara tried to look serious, but were obviously only too ready to join in any frolic which happened to be passing in Ursula Glynde's lively little head.
"Oh!" said the latter, as soon as she had partially recovered her breath. "Oh! I vow 'tis the best of the bunch."
With the freedom of a spoilt child, who knows how welcome are its caresses, Ursula sidled up to the Duchess of Lincoln and sat down upon the arm of her chair.
"Your Grace, a share of your seat I entreat," she said gaily, heedless of stern looks. "Nay! I'll die of laughing unless you let me read you this."
"Child! child!" admonished the Duchess, still trying to look severe, "this loud laughter is most unseemly – and your cheeks all ablaze! What is it now?"
"What is it, sweet Grace?" responded the young girl. "A poem! Listen!"
She smoothed out the piece of paper, spread it out upon her knee and began reading solemnly: —
"If all the world were sought so farre
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a starre
Within the frosty night.
Her roseall colour comes and goes
With such a comely grace,
More ruddier too than doth the rose,
Within her lively face."
"And beneath this sonnet," she continued, "a drawing – see! – a heart pierced by a dagger. His heart —my beauty which twinkleth like a starre!"
Who could resist the joy and gladness, the freshness, the youth, the girlishness which emanated from Ursula's entire personality? The two other girls pressed closely round her, giggling like school-children at sight of the rough, sentimental device affixed to the love poem.
The Duchess vainly endeavoured to keep up a semblance of sternness, but she could not meet those laughing eyes, now dark, now blue, now an ever-changing grey, alive with irrepressible mischief, yet full of loving tenderness. She felt that her wrath would soon melt in the sunshine of that girlish smile.
"Lady Ursula, this is most unseemly," she said as coldly as she could. "How came you by this poem?"
Ursula threw her arms round the feebly-resisting old dame.
"Hush!" she whispered, "in your dear old ears! I found it, sweet Duchess.. beside my stockings.. when I came out of my bath!"
"Horror!"
"Now, Duchess! dear, sweet, darling, beautiful Duchess, tell me, who think you wrote this poem? And who —who think you placed it near my stockings?"
The Duchess was almost speechless, partly through genuine horror, but chiefly because a sweet, fresh face was pressed closely to her old cheek.
"'Twas not the Earl of Norfolk," continued Ursula meditatively. She seemed quite unconscious of the enormity of her offence, and sought the eyes of her young friends in confirmation of these various surmises. "He cannot write verses. Nor could it be my lord of Overcliffe, for he would not know where to find my stockings."
"The vanity of the child!" sighed Her Grace. "Think you these great gentlemen would write verses to a chit of a girl like you?"
But her kind eyes, resting with obvious pride on the dainty figure beside her, belied the severity of her words.
"Yes," replied Ursula decisively, "bad ones! – not such beautiful verses as these."
Then she went on with her conjectures.
"And there's my lord of Everingham, and the Marquis of Taunton, and – "
"His Grace of Wessex," suggested Alicia archly, despite the Duchess's warning frown.
"Alas, no!" sighed Ursula, "for he has never been allowed to see me."
"Ursula!" came in ever-recurring feeble protests from the old dowager.
But the young girl was wholly unabashed.
"But he will see me – before to-night," she said.
The others exchanged significant glances.
"To-night?"
"Yes! What have I said? Why do you all look like that?"
"Because your conduct, child, is positively wanton," said the Duchess.
But Ursula only hugged the kind old soul all the more closely.
"Now – now," she coaxed, "don't be angry, darling. There! – look!" she added with mock horror, "your coif is all awry."
With deft fingers she rearranged the delicate lace cap over Her Grace's white curls.
"So,"
