Rippingdale?"

"Shall I read on, your Majesty?" asked the young lady, with heightened
colour, and a look of adventure and purpose in her eyes. Perhaps, too,
there was a look of anger in them--not against the King, for there was a
sort of eagerness or appealing in the glance she cast towards his
Majesty.

The Queen lifted her eyes to the King half doubtfully, for the question
seemed to her perilous, Charles being little inclined, as a rule, to
listen to serious reading, though he was ever gay in conversation, and
alert for witty badinage. His Majesty, however, seemed more than
complaisant; he was even boyishly eager.

The young lady had been but a short time in the household, having come
over with the Queen from Portugal, where she had been brought to the
notice of the then Princess by her great coolness and bravery in rescuing
a young lady of Lisbon from grave peril. She had told the Princess then
that she was the daughter of an exiled English gentleman, and was in the
care of her aunt, one Mistress Falkingham, while her father was gone on
an expedition to Italy. The Princess, eager to learn English, engaged
her, and she had remained in the palace till the Princess left for
England. A year passed, and then the Queen of England sent for her, and
she had been brought close to the person of her Majesty.

At a motion from Charles, who sat upon a couch, idly tapping the buckles
on his shoes with a gold-handled staff, the young lady placed herself
again at the Queen's feet and continued reading:

"It was when the King was come to Boston town upon the business of