‘Alas, my lord! tame enough now,’ sighed the countess.

’Not too tame to understand that she must represent her husband before the king’s majesty,’ said lord Worcester.

Lady Glamorgan rose, kissed her father-in-law, wiped her eyes, and said—­

‘Where, my lord, do you purpose lodging his majesty?’

’In the great north room, over the buttery, and next the picture-gallery, which will serve his majesty to walk in, and the windows there have the finest prospect of all.  I did think of the great tower, but—­Well—­the chamber there is indeed statelier, but it is gloomy as a dull twilight, while the one I intend him to lie in is bright as a summer morning.  The tower chamber makes me think of all the lords and ladies that have died therein; the north room, of all the babies that have been born there.’

‘Spoken like a man!’ murmured lady Glamorgan.  ’Have you given directions, my lord?’

’I have sent for sir Ralph.  Come with me, Margaret:  you and Mary must keep your old father from blundering.  Run, Dorothy, and tell Mr. Delaware and Mr. Andrews that I desire their presence in my closet.  I miss the rogue Scudamore.  They tell me he hath done well, and is sorely wounded.  He must feel the better for the one already, and I hope he will soon be nothing the worse for the other.’

As he thus talked, they left the room and took their way to the study, where they found the steward waiting them.

The whole castle was presently alive with preparations for the king’s visit.  That he had been so sorely foiled of late, only roused in all the greater desire to receive him with every possible honour.  Hope revived in lady Glamorgan’s bosom:  she would take the coming of the king as a good omen for the return of her husband.

Dorothy ran to do the marquis’s pleasure.  As she ran, it seemed as if some new spring of life had burst forth in her heart.  The king! the king actually coming!  The God-chosen monarch of England!  The head of the church!  The type of omnipotence!  The wronged, the saintly, the wise!  He who fought with bleeding heart for the rights, that he might fulfil the duties to which he was born!  She would see him! she would breathe the same air with him! gaze on his gracious countenance unseen until she had imprinted every feature of his divine face upon her heart and memory!  The thought was too entrancing.  She wept as she ran to find the master of the horse and the master of the fish-ponds.

At length, on the evening of the third of July, a pursuivant, accompanied by an advanced guard of horsemen, announced the king, and presently on the north road appeared the dust of his approach.  Nearer they came, all on horseback, a court of officers.  Travel-stained and weary, with foam-flecked horses, but flowing plumes, flashing armour, and ringing chains, they arrived at the brick gate, where lord Charles himself threw the two leaves open to admit them, and