the draughts around the hearth, where Mary reclined on a couch-like chair.  She looked ill, and though she brightened with her sweet smile to welcome her guest, there were dark circles round her eyes, and an air of dejection in her whole appearance.  She held out her hand graciously, as Richard approached, closely followed by his host; he put his knee to the ground and kissed it, as she said, “You must pardon me, Mr. Talbot, for discourtesy, if I am less agile than when we were at Buxton.  You see my old foe lies in wait to plague me with aches and pains so soon as the year declines.”

“I am sorry to see your Grace thus,” returned Richard, standing on the step.

“The while I am glad to see you thus well, sir.  And how does the good lady, your wife, and my sweet playfellow, your daughter?”

“Well, madam, I thank your Grace, and Cicely has presumed to send a billet by mine hand.”

“Ah! the dear bairnie,” and all the Queen’s consummate art could not repress the smile of gladness and the movement of eager joy with which she held out her hand for it, so that Richard regretted its extreme brevity and unsatisfying nature, and Mary, recollecting herself in a second, added, smiling at Sadler, “Mr. Talbot knows how a poor prisoner must love the pretty playfellows that are lent to her for a time.”

Sir Ralf’s presence hindered any more intimate conversation, and Richard had certainly committed a solecism in giving Cicely’s letter the precedence over the Earl’s.  The Queen, however, had recalled her caution, and inquired for the health of the Lord and Lady, and, with a certain sarcasm on her lips, trusted that the peace of the family was complete, and that they were once more setting Hallamshire the example of living together as household doves.

Her hazel eyes meantime archly scanned the face of Richard, who could not quite forget the very undovelike treatment he had received, though he could and did sturdily aver that “my Lord and my Lady were perfectly reconciled, and seemed most happy in their reunion.”

“Well-a-day, let us trust that there will be no further disturbances to their harmony,” said Mary, “a prayer I may utter most sincerely.  Is the little Arbell come back with them?”

“Yea, madam.”

“And is she installed in my former rooms, with the canopy over her cradle to befit her strain of royalty?”

“I think not, madam.  Meseems that my Lady Countess hath seen reason to be heedful on that score.  My young lady hath come back with a grave gouvernante, who makes her read her primer and sew her seam, and save that she sat next my Lady at the wedding feast there is little difference made between her and the other grandchildren.”

The Queen then inquired into the circumstances of the wedding festivities with the interest of one to whom most of the parties were more or less known, and who seldom had the treat of a little feminine gossip.  She asked who had been “her little Cis’s partner,” and when she heard of Babington, she said, “Ah ha, then, the poor youth has made his peace with my Lord?”