“A princess, say you, Betty?” asked George.  “Nonsense!  That is Nelly Gwynn laughing.  I should know her laugh in the din of battle.”

“Nelly Gwynn?” cried Betty, joyously.  There was not in all England a duchess nor a princess half so great in Betty’s opinion as Nelly Gwynn.  She was the queen of all London east of Temple Bar, and dearer to the City’s heart than any one else at court.

George, too, liked Nelly, and when Betty left him to fetch the pot of tea from the kitchen for the ladies, he determined to go to the private dining room and see the king’s sweetest sweetheart, from whom he knew he would hear all the news of court, including perhaps a word about Frances.

Taking his hat from the floor, Hamilton entered the small dining room and hurried toward the princess and the duchess.  Frances sat with her back toward the door, so that she did not see him as he approached, nor did he see her face.  When Nelly saw him she rose hastily, stretched out her hands in welcome, and exclaimed:—­

“Well, well, handsome George, as sure as I’m not a bishop’s wife!  How are you, my long-lost love?”

She stepped forward to meet him, gave him both her hands, stood on tiptoe to be kissed, and when that pleasing operation had been finished, said:—­

“Come with me.  I want to present you to my hated rival, the king’s latest love.  Mistress Jennings, this is my dangerous friend, Master George Hamilton.”

Nelly’s words were my cousin’s first warning of Hamilton’s presence, and her surprise, nay, her consternation, deprived her, for the moment, of the power to think.  Hamilton bowed low before my cousin and said:—­

“I have the great pleasure of knowing Mistress Jennings.”

Anger came to Frances’s help, and she retorted:  “You are mistaken, sir.  You have not the pleasure of knowing me, nor have I the humiliation of knowing you.”

She turned again to her dinner.  Nelly whistled in surprise, and Hamilton said:  “I beg your pardon.”  Then turning to Nelly:  “I thought I knew the king’s new lady love, but it seems I was mistaken.  Adieu, Mistress Gwynn.”  And turning hastily, he left the room.

As George was resuming his chair at the table in the tap-room, three roystering, half-tipsy fellows, wearing the uniform of the King’s Guard, entered, flung themselves into chairs at the long table and called loudly for brandy.  Hamilton did not know any of them, though he knew by their uniforms and swords that they were in the king’s service.

Soon after the guardsmen were seated, Betty came from the kitchen carrying a pot of hot tea and a bottle of wine for Nelly and Frances.  As she was passing the newcomers, one of them rose, seized her about the waist, and tried to kiss her.  But the girl belonged, flesh and blood, to the class of women with whom kissing goes strictly by favor, so she dashed the hot tea in the fellow’s face and went her way with the bottle of wine.  Though the tea was hot, it cooled the fellow’s ardor, and he sat down, cursing furiously.  Pickering tried to quiet him, saying:—­