gloomy air with which Edward glanced around the strong walls of the
fortress, and up to the battlements that bristled with the pikes and
sallets of armed men, who looked on the pomp below, in the silence of
military discipline.

"Oh, Anne!" she whispered to her youngest daughter, who stood beside
her, "what are women worth in the strife of men? Would that our
smiles could heal the wounds which a taunt can make in a proud man's
heart!"

Anne, affected and interested by her mother's words, and with a secret
curiosity to gaze upon the man who ruled on the throne of the prince
she loved, came nearer and more in front; and suddenly, as he turned
his head, the king's regard rested upon her intent eyes and blooming
face.

"Who is that fair donzell, cousin of Warwick?" he asked.

"My daughter, sire."

"Ah, your youngest!--I have not seen her since she was a child."

Edward reined in his charger, and the earl threw himself from his
selle, and held the king's stirrup to dismount. But he did so with a
haughty and unsmiling visage. "I would be the first, sire," said he,
with a slight emphasis, and as if excusing to himself his
condescension, "to welcome to Middleham the son of Duke Richard."

"And your suzerain, my lord earl," added Edward, with no less proud a
meaning, and leaning his hand lightly on Warwick's shoulder, he