“I heard them speak of Madame Ellen,” he answered.  “They said something about some pretty things made of gold and that the people were angry that they were for her Grace of Portsmouth instead of Madame Ellen.  Why do they like her better?”

Mistress Halsell took his hand and walked with him to their favourite seat in the big window.

“It is because she is the better woman of the two, my lord,” she said.

“Is the other one bad, then?” he inquired.  “And why does his Majesty give her things made of gold?”

“To pay her,” answered Mistress Rebecca, looking thoughtfully out of the window.

“For what?” the young Marquess asked.

“For—­for that an honest woman should not take pay for.”

“Then why does he love her?  Is he a bad King?” his voice lowering as he said it and his brown-eyed, ruddy little face grown solemn.

“A quiet woman in a place like mine cannot judge of Kings,” she answered; “but to be King is a grave thing.”

“Grave!” cried he; “I thought it was very splendid.  All England belongs to him; he wears a gold crown and people kneel to kiss his hand.  My father and mother kneel to him when they go to the Court.”

“That is why it is grave,” said Mistress Rebecca.  “All the people look to him for their example.  Because he is their head they follow him.  He can lead them to good or evil.  He can help England to be honest or base.  He is the king.”

The little fellow looked out upon the fair scene spread before him.  Many thoughts he could not yet have found words for welled up within him and moved him vaguely.

“He is the King,” he repeated, softly; “he is the King!”

Mistress Rebecca looked at him with tender, searching eyes.  She had, through her own thoughts, learned how much these small creatures—­sometimes dealt with so carelessly—­felt when they were too young for phrases, and how much, also, they remembered their whole lives through.

“He is the King,” she said, “and a King must think of his people.  A Duke, too, must think of his—­as his Grace, your father, thinks, never dealing lightly with his great name or his great house, or those of whom he is governor.”

The boy climbed upon her knee and sat there, leaning against her as he loved to do.  His eyes rested on the far edge of the farthest purple moor, behind which the sun seemed to be slipping away into some other world he knew not of.  The little clouds floating in the high blue sky were rosy where they were not golden; a flock of rooks was flying slowly homeward over the tree-tops, cawing lazily as they came.  A great and beautiful stillness seemed to rest on all the earth, and his little mind was full of strange ponderings, leading him through labyrinths of dreams he would remember and comprehend the deep meaning of only when he was a man.  Somehow all his thoughts were trooping round about a rich and brilliant figure which was a sort of image standing to him for the personality of his Most Sacred Majesty King Charles the Second—­the King who was not quite a King, though all England looked to him, and he could lead it to good or evil.