A tall, slim, fair-faced maiden, with a very regal mien, looked up quickly from an embroidery frame over which she was bending, and glanced from the eager, flushed face of the younger girl who stood beside her to that of a tall and stalwart English youth, who appeared to be the bearer of a piece of news, and asked in her unconsciously queenly way: 

“What is it, Sir Godfrey, that you have told this impetuous child, to have set her in such a quiver of excitement?”

“Only this, gracious lady, that certain youthful chieftains from the south have come hither to Rhuddlan to pay their homage to your royal father.  In his absence at Chester they have been lodged within the castle walls, as becomes their station.  It has been told me that amongst them are four sons of one Res Vychan, lately dead, and that he was Lord of Dynevor, which honour has descended to his eldest son.  I was telling what I knew to Lady Gertrude when she broke away to speak to you.”

“Eleanor, it must be he —­ it must be they!” cried Gertrude, with flushing cheek and kindling eye —­ “Res Vychan, Lord of Dynevor, and his four sons.  It could be none else than they.  O Eleanor, sweet Eleanor, bid them be brought hither to see us!  Thou hast heard the story of how we went thither, my father and I, two years agone now, and of what befell me there.  I have never heard a word of Wendot since, and I have thought of him so oft.  Thou art mistress here now; they all heed thy lightest word.  Bid that the brothers be brought hither to us.  I do so long to see them again!”

Gertrude was fairly trembling with excitement; but that was no unusual thing for her, as she was an ardent, excitable little mortal, and ever in a fever of some kind or another.  The young knight who had brought the news looked at her with unmistakable admiration and pleasure, and seemed as though he would gladly have obeyed any behest of hers; but he was fain to wait for the decision of the stately Eleanor, the king’s eldest and much-beloved child, who in the temporary absence of her parents occupied a position of no little importance in the household, and whose will, in the royal apartments at any rate, was law.

But there were other listeners to Gertrude’s eager words.  At the far end of the long gallery, which was occupied by the royal children as their private apartment, a group of three young things had been at play, but the urgency of Gertrude’s tones had arrested their attention, and they had drawn near to hear her last words.  One of these younger children was a black-eyed girl, with a very handsome face and an imperious manner, which gave to onlookers the idea that she was older than her years.  Quick tempered, generous, hasty, and self willed was the Lady Joanna, the second daughter of the king; but her warm affections caused all who knew her to love her; and her romantic temperament was always stirred to its depths by any story that savoured of chivalry or heroism.