’Harpaghes first his tale tolde,
    And said, how that the strength of kinges
    Is mightiest of alle thinges. 
    For king hath power over man,
    And man is he, which reson can,
    As he, which is of his nature
    The most noble creature
    Of alle tho that God hath wrought. 
    And by that skill it seemeth nought, (for that reason)
    He saith that any erthly thing
    May be so mighty as a king. 
    A king may spille, a king may save,
    A king may make of lorde a knave,
    And of a knave a lord also;
    The power of a king stant so
    That he the lawes overpasseth. 
    What he will make lasse, he lasseth;
    What he will make more, he moreth;
    And as a gentil faucon soreth,
    He fleeth, that no man him reclaimeth. 
    But he alone all other tameth,
    And slant him self of lawe fre.’

’There, my liege!  So much for Aristotle and the kinghood!  But think not he taketh me with him all the way.  By our Lady, I go not so far.’

Lifting his head again, he saw, to his wish, that ’divers new-made lords’ had ‘slunk out of the room.’

‘My lord,’ said the king, ’at this rate you will drive away all my nobility.’

‘I protest unto your majesty,’ the marquis replied, ’I am as new a made lord as any of them all, but I was never called knave or rogue so much in all my life as I have been since I received this last honour:  and why should they not bear their shares?’

In high good-humour with his success, he told the story the same evening to lady Glamorgan in Dorothy’s presence.  It gave her ground for thought:  she wondered that the marquis should think the king required such lessoning.  She had never dreamed that a man and his office are not only metaphysically distinct, but may be morally separate things; she had hitherto taken the office as the pledge for the man, the show as the pledge for the reality; and now therefore her notion of the king received a rude shock from his best friend.

The arrival of his majesty had added to her labours, for now again horse must spout every day,—­with no Molly to see it and rejoice.  Every fountain rushed heavenwards, ‘and all the air’ was ’filled with pleasant noise of waters.’  This required the fire-engine to be kept pretty constantly at work, and Dorothy had to run up and down the stair of the great tower several times a-day.  But she lingered on the top as often and as long as she might.

One glorious July afternoon, gazing from the top of the keep, she saw his majesty, the marquis, some of the courtiers, and a Mr. Prichard of the neighbourhood, on the bowling-green, having a game together.  It was like looking at a toy-representation of one, for, so far below, everything was wondrously dwarfed and fore-shortened.  But certainly it was a pretty sight-the gay garments, the moving figures, the bowls rolling like marbles over the green carpet, while