happened me; I knew not, or had forgotten rather, the arrival of the
babe Sir John speaks of. As thou knowest, I came home unexpectedly,
and I found the letter here. It had arrived some time before, and
I read it hastily, told Wasson my duty and passed the letter to a
convenient pocket, and thence until the night of the _masque_ forgot
all about the arrival of the infant. I was masqued, mad and raving at
Christopher for not mending my bag-pipe, and I rushed swearing after
him and Mistress Penwick heard my oaths, my broad Scotch ones thou
knowest I love to use when in anger. She hates me for it, and I can
do naught to win the confidence due me as her rightful guardian. So I
have settled upon an immediate espousal--"

"Immediate? Thou marry a child,--'tis unseemly--"

"Nay, 'tis not unseemly; 'tis the most proper thing to do. Janet
says so, too, and will urge her to accept me as soon as I wish to
wed--which shall be at the earliest moment."

"Janet, indeed! What right has a servant to forward the doings of
master and mistress? Thou hadst best wait and have her Grace of
Ellswold present her at Court and give the child at least one season
in London to improve her convent ways."

"Nay, Constance, if she were to grow one whit more beautiful, 'twould
kill me dead."

"I am afraid thou art easily slain; indeed, I never knew beauty was so
murderous before. Thou art surely beside thyself; she here alone in
this great castle without a mother's love to guide! No one to whom she
can tell her troubles! How must the poor child feel to be forced into