There was something in the quality of Susan’s voice to which people listened, and the present necessity overcame the Countess’s desire to assert the dignity of her granddaughter, so she marched out of the room attended by the women, while the Earl and his sons were only too glad to slink away—­there is no other word for it, their relief as to the expected visitor having been exchanged for consternation of another description.

There was a blazing fire ready, and all the baby comforts of the time provided, and poor little Lady Arbell was relieved from her swathing bands, and allowed to stretch her little limbs on her nurse’s lap, the one rest really precious to babes of all periods and conditions—­ but the troubles were not yet over, for the grandmother, glancing round, demanded, “Where is the cradle inlaid with pearl?  Why was it not provided?  Bring it here.”

Now this cradle, carved in cedar wood and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, had been a sponsor’s gift to poor little George, the first male heir of the Talbots, and it was regarded as a special treasure by his mother, who was both wounded and resentful at the demand, and stood pouting and saying, “It was my son’s.  It is mine.”

“It belongs to the family.  You,” to two of the servants, “fetch it here instantly!”

The ladies of Hardwicke race were not guarded in temper or language, and Mary burst into passionate tears and exclamations that Bess’s brat should not have her lost George’s cradle, and flounced away to get before the servants and lock it up.  Lady Shrewsbury would have sprung after her, and have made no scruple of using her fists and nails even on her married daughter, but that she was impeded by a heavy table, and this gave time for Susan to throw herself before her, and entreat her to pause.

“You, you, Susan Talbot!  You should know better than to take the part of an undutiful, foul-tongued vixen like that.  Out of my way, I say!” and as Susan, still on her knees, held the riding-dress, she received a stinging box on the ear.  But in her maiden days she had known the weight of my lady’s hand, and without relaxing her hold, she only entreated:  “Hear me, hear me for a little space, my lady.  Did you but know how sore her heart is, and how she loved little Master George!”

“That is no reason she should flout and miscall her dead sister, of whom she was always jealous!”

“O madam, she wept with all her heart for poor Lady Lennox.  It is not any evil, but she sets such store by that cradle in which her child died—­she keeps it by her bed even now, and her woman told me how, for all she seems gay and blithe by day, she weeps over it at night, as if her heart would break.”

Lady Shrewsbury was a little softened.  “The child died in it?” she asked.

“Yea, madam.  He had been on his father’s knee, and had seemed a little easier, and as if he might sleep, so Sir Gilbert laid him down, and he did but stretch himself out, shiver all over, draw a long breath, and the pretty lamb was gone to Paradise!”