nosed Isabel; 'strange to spell or rede,' as I would wager my best
destrier to a tailor's hobby, the damozel surely is."

"Notest thou yon gaudy popinjay?" whispered the Lord of St. John to
one of his Towton comrades, as, leaning against the wall, they
overheard the sarcasms of Anthony, and the laugh of the courtiers, who
glassed their faces and moods to his. "Is the time so out of joint
that Master Anthony Woodville can vent his scurrile japes on the
heiress of Salisbury and Warwick in the king's chamber?"

"And prate of spelling and reading as if they were the cardinal
virtues?" returned his sullen companion. "By my halidame, I have two
fair daughters at home who will lack husbands, I trow, for they can
only spin and be chaste,--two maidenly gifts out of bloom with the
White Rose."

In the mean while, unwitting, or contemptuous, of the attention they
excited, Warwick and Clarence continued yet more earnestly to confer.

"No, George, no," said the earl, who, as the descendant of John of
Gaunt, and of kin to the king's blood, maintained, in private, a
father's familiarity with the princes of York, though on state
occasions, and when in the hearing of others, he sedulously marked his
deference for their rank--"no, George, calm and steady thy hot mettle,
for thy brother's and England's sake. I grieve as much as thou to
hear that the queen does not spare even thee in her froward and
unwomanly peevishness. But there is a glamour in this, believe me,
that must melt away soon or late, and our kingly Edward recover his
senses."