know them myself?"--and Isabel, with something of her father's
playfulness, put her hands to Anne's laughing lips.

Meanwhile Warwick, after walking musingly a few moments along the
garden, which was formed by plots of sward, bordered with fruit-trees,
and white rose-trees not yet in blossom, turned to his silent kinsman,
and said, "Forgive me, cousin mine, my mannerless burst against thy
brave father's faction; but when thou hast been a short while at
court, thou wilt see where the sore is. Certes, I love this king!"
Here his dark face lighted up. "Love him as a king,--ay, and as a
son! And who would not love him; brave as his sword, gallant, and
winning, and gracious as the noonday in summer? Besides, I placed him
on his throne; I honour myself in him!"

The earl's stature dilated as he spoke the last sentence, and his hand
rested on his dagger hilt. He resumed, with the same daring and
incautious candour that stamped his dauntless, soldier-like nature,
"God hath given me no son. Isabel of Warwick had been a mate for
William the Norman; and my grandson, if heir to his grandsire's soul,
should have ruled from the throne of England over the realms of
Charlemagne! But it hath pleased Him whom the Christian knight alone
bows to without shame, to order otherwise. So be it. I forgot my
just pretensions,--forgot my blood, and counselled the king to
strengthen his throne with the alliance of Louis XI. He rejected the
Princess Bona of Savoy, to marry widow Elizabeth Gray; I sorrowed for
his sake, and forgave the slight to my counsels. At his prayer I
followed the train of his queen, and hushed the proud hearts of our
barons to obeisance. But since then, this Dame Woodville, whom I
queened, if her husband mated, must dispute this roiaulme with mine
and me,--a Nevile, nowadays, must vail his plume to a Woodville! And