"Nay, my lord," she said, after a short pause, "we value the peace of
our roiaulme too much for so high an ambition. Were we to make a
brother even the prince of the closheys, we should disappoint the
hopes of a Nevile."

The earl disdained pursuing the war of words, and answering coldly,
"The Neviles are more famous for making ingrates than asking favours.
I leave your Highness to the closheys"--turned away, and strode
towards the king, who, at the opposite end of the garden, was
reclining on a bench beside a lady, in whose ear, to judge by her
downcast and blushing cheek, he was breathing no unwelcome whispers.

"Mort-Dieu!" muttered the earl, who was singularly exempt, himself,
from the amorous follies of the day, and eyed them with so much
contempt that it often obscured his natural downright penetration into
character, and never more than when it led him afterwards to underrate
the talents of Edward IV.,--"Mort-Dieu! if, an hour before the battle
of Towton, some wizard had shown me in his glass this glimpse of the
gardens of the Tower, that giglet for a queen, and that squire of
dames for a king, I had not slain my black destrier (poor Malech!),
that I might conquer or die for Edward Earl of March."

"But see!" said the lady, looking up from the enamoured and conquering
eyes of the king, "art thou not ashamed, my lord?--the grim earl comes
to chide thee for thy faithlessness to thy queen, whom he loves so
well."

"Pasque-Dieu! as my cousin Louis of France says or swears," answered
the king, with an evident petulance in his altered voice, "I would