“No, madam, this is no state secret; such as I might not with honour conceal,” returned Richard.

“There is true English sense!” exclaimed Mary.  “I may then count on your giving my daughter the protection of your name and your home until I can reclaim her and place her in her true position.  Yea, and if your concealment should give offence, and bring you under any displeasure of my good sister, those who have so saved and tended my daughter will have the first claim to whatever I can give when restored to my kingdom.”

“We are much beholden for your Grace’s favour,” said Richard, somewhat stiffly, “but I trust never to serve any land save mine own.”

“Ah! there is your fierete,” cried Mary.  “Happy is my sister to have subjects with such a point of honour.  Happy is my child to have been bred up by such parents!”

Richard bowed.  It was all a man could do at such a speech, and Mary further added, “She has told me to what bounds went your goodness to her.  It is well that you acted so prudently that the children’s hearts were not engaged; for, as we all know but too well royal blood should have no heart.”

“I am quite aware of it, madam,” returned Richard, and there for the time the conversation ended.  The Queen had been most charming, full of gratitude, and perfectly reasonable in her requests, and yet there was some flaw in the gratification of both, even while neither thought the disappointment would go very hard with their son.  Richard could never divest himself of the instinctive prejudice with which soft words inspire men of his nature, and Susan’s maternal heart was all in revolt against the inevitable, not merely grieving over the wrench to her affections, but full of forebodings and misgivings as to the future welfare of her adopted child.  Even if the brightest hopes should be fulfilled; the destiny of a Scottish princess did not seem to Southern eyes very brilliant at the best, and whether poor Bride Hepburn might be owned as a princess at all was a doubtful matter, since, if her father lived (and he had certainly been living in 1577 in Norway), both the Queen and the Scottish people would be agreed in repudiating the marriage.  Any way, Susan saw every reason to fear for the happiness and the religion alike of the child to whom she had given a mother’s love.  Under her grave, self-contained placid demeanour, perhaps Dame Susan was the most dejected of those at Buxton.  The captive Queen had her hopes of freedom and her newly found daughter, who was as yet only a pleasure, and not an encumbrance to her, the Earl had been assured that his wife’s slanders had been forgotten.  He was secure of his sovereign’s favour, and permitted to see the term of his weary jailorship, and thus there was an unusual liveliness and cheerfulness about the whole sojourn at Buxton, where, indeed, there was always more or less of a holiday time.