of two men, her daughter, a serving-maid, and the page, it took her all of five minutes by the clock to get herself seated.  But when her slippered feet were on a Persian rug and the displaced ringlets of her monster wig adjusted by the waiting abigail and smelling-salts put on a marquetry table nearby and the folds of the gown righted by the page-boy, Lady Kirke extended a hand to receive our compliments.  I mind she called Radisson her “dear, sweet savage,” and bade him have a care not to squeeze the stones of her rings into the flesh of her fingers.

“As if any man would want to squeeze such a ragbag o’ tawdry finery and milliners’ tinsel,” said Radisson afterward to me.

I, being younger, was “a dear, bold fellow,” with a tap of her fan to the words and a look over the top of it like to have come from some saucy jade of sixteen.

After which the serving-maid must hand the smelling-salts and the page-boy haste to stroke out her train.

“Egad,” says Radisson when my lady had informed us that Sir John would await Sieur Radisson’s coming at the Fur Company’s offices, “egad, there’ll be no getting Ramsay away till he sees some one else!”

“And who is that?” simpers Lady Kirke, languishing behind her fan.

“Who, indeed, but the little maid we sent from the north sea.”

“La,” cries Lady Kirke with a sudden livening, “an you always do as well for us all, we can forgive you, Pierre!  The courtiers have cried her up and cried her up, till your pretty savage of the north sea is like to become the first lady of the land!  Sir John comes home with your letter to me—­boy, the smelling-salts!—­so!—­and I say to him, ’Sir John, take the story to His Royal Highness!’ Good lack, Pierre, no sooner hath the Duke of York heard the tale than off he goes with it to King Charles!  His Majesty hath an eye for a pretty baggage.  Oh, I promise you, Pierre, you have done finely for us all!”

And the lady must simper and smirk and tap Pierre Radisson with her fan, with a glimmer of ill-meaning through her winks and nods that might have brought the blush to a woman’s cheeks in Commonwealth days.

“Madame,” cried Pierre Radisson with his eyes ablaze, “that sweet child came to no harm or wrong among our wilderness of savages!  An she come to harm in a Christian court, by Heaven, somebody’ll answer me for’t!”

“Lackaday!  Hoighty-toighty, Pierre!  How you stamp!  The black-eyed monkey hath been named maid of honour to Queen Catherine!  How much better could we have done for her?”

“Maid of honour to the lonely queen?” says Radisson.  “That is well!”

“She is ward of the court till a husband be found for her,” continues Lady Kirke.

“There will be plenty willing to be found,” says Pierre Radisson, looking me wondrous straight in the eye.

“Not so sure—­not so sure, Pierre!  We catch no glimpse of her nowadays; but they say young Lieutenant Blood o’ the Tower shadows the court wherever she is——­”