It was a strange night.  Cis was more conscious of wonder, excitement, and a certain exultation, than of actual affection.  She had not been bred up so as to hunger and crave for love.  Indeed she had been treated with more tenderness and indulgence than was usual with people’s own daughters, and her adopted parents had absorbed her undoubting love and respect.

Queen Mary’s fervent caresses were at least as embarrassing as they were gratifying, because she did not know what response to make, and the novelty and wonder of the situation were absolutely distressing.

They would have been more so but for the Queen’s tact.  She soon saw that she was overwhelming the girl, and that time must be given for her to become accustomed to the idea.  So, saying tenderly something about rest, she lay quietly, leaving Cis, as she supposed, to sleep.  This, however, was impossible to the girl, except in snatches which made her have to prove to herself again and again that it was not all a dream.  The last of these wakenings was by daylight, as full as the heavy curtains would admit, and she looked up into a face that was watching her with such tender wistfulness that it drew from her perforce the word “Mother.”

“Ah! that is the tone with the true ring in it.  I thank thee and I bless thee, my bairn,” said Mary, making over her the sign of the cross, at which the maiden winced as at an incantation.  Then she added, “My little maid, we must be up and stirring.  Mind, no word of all this.  Thou art Cicely Talbot by day, as ever, and only my child, my Bride, mine ain wee thing, my princess by night.  Canst keep counsel?”

“Surely, madam,” said Cis, “I have known for five years that I was a foundling on the wreck, and I never uttered a word.”

Mary smiled.  “This is either a very simple child or a very canny one,” she said to Jean Kennedy.  “Either she sees no boast in being of royal blood, or she deems that to have the mother she has found is worse than the being the nameless foundling.”

“Oh! madam, mother, not so!  I meant but that I had held my tongue when I had something to tell!”

“Let thy secrecy stand thee in good stead, child,” said the Queen.  “Remember that did the bruit once get abroad, thou wouldest assuredly be torn from me, to be mewed up where the English Queen could hinder thee from ever wedding living man.  Ay, and it might bring the head of thy foster-father to the block, if he were thought to have concealed the matter.  I fear me thou art too young for such a weighty secret.”

“I am seventeen years old, madam,” returned Cis, with dignity; “I have kept the other secret since I was twelve.”

“Then thou wilt, I trust, have the wisdom not to take the princess on thee, nor to give any suspicion that we are more to one another than the caged bird and the bright linnet that comes to sing on the bars of her cage.  Only, child, thou must get from Master Talbot these tokens that I hear of.  Hast seen them?”