cauldron on it, with a silver and a copper basin beside it for
washing purposes, never discarded by poor Queen Joanna and her
old English nurse Ankaret, who had remained beside her through
all the troubles of the stormy and barbarous country, and,
though crippled by a fall and racked with rheumatism, was the
chief comfort of the young children. She crouched at the hearth
with her spinning and her beads, and exclaimed at the tossed
hair and soiled hands and faces of her charges.

Mary brought the little ones to her to be set to rights, and the
elder girls did their best with their toilette. Princesses as
they were, the ruddy golden tresses of Eleanor and the flaxen
locks of Jean and Mary were the only ornaments that they could
boast of as their own; and though there were silken and
embroidered garments of their mother's in one of the chests,
their mourning forbade the use of them. The girls only wore the
plain black kirtles that had been brought from Haddington at the
time of the funeral, and the little boys had such homespun
garments as the shepherd lads wore.

Partly scolding, partly caressing, partly bemoaning the
condition of her young ladies, so different from the splendours
of the house of Somerset, Ankaret saw that Eleanor was as fit
to be seen as circumstances would permit; as to Jean and Mary,
there was no trouble on that score.

The whole was not accomplished till a horn was sounded as an
intimation that supper was ready, at five o'clock, for the
entire household, and all made their way down--Jean first, in
all the glory of her fair face and beautiful hair; then Eleanor