’So well that if she often saith as well, I shall have much ado not to hate her,’ replied lady Glamorgan.  ’When didst thou ever cry “well spoken” to thy mad Irishwoman, Ned?’

’All thou dost is well, my lady.  Thou hast all the titles to my praises already in thy pocket.  Besides, cousin Dorothy is young and meek, and requireth a little encouragement.’

’Whereas thy wife is old and bold, and cares no more for thy good word, my new lord of Glamorgan?’

Dorothy looked so grave that they both fell a-laughing.

‘I would thou couldst teach her a merry jest or two, Margaret,’ said the earl.  ’We are decent people enough in Raglan, but she is much too sober for us.  Cheer up, Dorothy!  Good times are at hand:  that thou mayest not doubt it, listen—­but this is only for thy ear, not for thy tongue:  the king hath made thy cousin, that is me, Edward Somerset, the husband of this fair lady, generalissimo of his three armies, and admiral of a fleet, and truly I know not what all, for I have yet but run my eye over the patent.  And, wife, I verily do believe the king but bides his time to make my father duke of Somerset, and then one day thou wilt be a duchess, Margaret.  Think on that!’

Lady Glamorgan burst into tears.

‘I would I might have a kiss of my Molly!’ she cried.

She had never before in Dorothy’s hearing uttered the name of her child since her death.  New dignity, strange as it may seem to some, awoke suddenly the thought of the darling to whom titles were but words, and the ice was broken.  A pause followed.

‘Yes, Margaret, thou art right,’ said Glamorgan at length; ’it is all but folly; yet as the marks of a king’s favour, such honours are precious.’

As to what a king’s favour itself might be worth, that my lord of Glamorgan lived to learn.

‘It is I who pay for them,’ said his wife.

‘How so, my dove?’

’Do they not cost me thee, Herbert—­and cost me very dear?  Art not ever from my sight?  Wish I not often as I lay awake in the dark, that we were all in heaven and well over with the foolery of it?  The angels keep Molly in mind of us!’

‘Yes, my Peggy, it is hard on thee, and hard on me too,’ said the earl tenderly, ’yet not so hard as upon our liege lord, the king, who selleth his plate and jewels.’

‘Pooh! what of that then, Herbert?  An’ he would leave me thee, he might have all mine, and welcome; for thou knowest, Ned, I but hold them for thee to sell when thou wilt.’

’I know; and the time may come, though, thank God, it is not yet.  What wouldst thou say, countess, if with all thy honours thou did yet come to poverty?  Canst be poor and merry, think’st thou?’

’So thou wert with me, Herbert—­Glamorgan, I would say, but my lips frame not themselves to the word.  I like not the title greatly, but when it means thee to me, then shall I love it.’

    ’Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? 
       O sweet content!’