“Never fear, if we can find a winsome young bride for him, trust mother, wife, and sister for moulding him to kingly bearing.  We will make our home in Stirling or Linlithgow, we two, and leave Holyrood to him.  I have seen too much there ever to thole the sight of those chambers, far less of the High Street of Edinburgh; but Stirling, bonnie Stirling, ay, I would fain ride a hawking there once more.  Methinks a Highland breeze would put life and youth into me again.  There’s a little chamber opening into mine, where I will bestow thee, my Lady Bride of Scotland, for so long as I may keep thee.  Ah! it will not be for long.  They will be seeking thee, my brave courtly faithful kindred of Lorraine, and Scottish nobles and English lords will vie for this little hand of thine, where courses the royal blood of both realms.”

“So please you, madam, my mother—­”

“Eh?  What is it?  Who is it?  I deemed that yonder honourable dame had kept thee from all the frolics and foibles of the poor old profession.  Fear not to tell me, little one.  Remember thine own mother hath a heart for such matters.  I guess already.  C’etait un beau garcon, ce pauvre Antoine.”

“Oh no, madam,” exclaimed Cicely.  “When the sailor Goatley disclosed that I was no child of my father’s, of Master Richard I mean, and was a nameless creature belonging to no one, Humfrey Talbot stood forth and pledged himself to wed me so soon as we were old enough.”

“And what said the squire and dame?”

“That I should then be indeed their daughter.”

“And hath the contract gone no farther?”

“No, madam.  He hath been to the North with Captain Frobisher, and since that to the Western Main, and we look for his return even now.”

“How long is it since this pledge, as thou callest it, was given?”

“Five years next Lammas tide, madam.”

“Was it by ring or token?”

“No, madam.  Our mother said we were too young, but Humfrey meant it with all his heart.”

“Humfrey!  That was the urchin who must needs traverse the correspondence through the seeming Tibbott, and so got Antony removed from about us.  A stout lubberly Yorkshire lad, fed on beef and pudding, a true Talbot, a mere English bull-dog who will have lost all the little breeding he had, while committing spulzie and piracy at sea on his Catholic Majesty’s ships.  Bah, mon enfant, I am glad of it.  Had he been a graceful young courtly page like the poor Antony, it might have been a little difficult, but a great English carle like that, whom thou hast not seen for five years—­” She made a gesture with her graceful hands as if casting away a piece of thistledown.

“Humfrey is my very good—­my very good brother, madam,” cried Cicely, casting about for words to defend him, and not seizing the most appropriate.