jewels, for me to kiss. "Nay, child," she said, "do not tremble so, I will not harm thee. Go to thy madcap cousin Dormer; she will school thee, I will warrant. But be a good child and not overbold, and let me see thee near me every day."

And so thenceforward I was always near her Grace. Ah! the happy, happy summer! It was for us one long round of gaiety and pleasure as the Queen journeyed slowly from palace to palace, all through June and July, on her way to Winchester to meet her bridegroom. All was hopeful and joyous then, and even the Queen's face seemed to grow brighter, younger, and more comely as she approached her wedding-day. We young girls were half-crazy with delight at our fine new garments and the bravery which surrounded us, greater, it is said, than ever was seen in the world before or since. But all this and the splendid ceremony at Winchester has but little to do with my story only that on the night before the wedding, when our new King Philip came secretly to see his bride for the first time at the bishop's house, we maidens were kept, much to our discontent, in an adjoining room whilst the Queen met her husband; and when the Queen brought him in to see us, he gaily kissed us all on the lips in the English fashion, whereat methought the Queen was sad. And when she had withdrawn him, the principal Spanish nobles who accompanied him would fain kiss us too. There was much merrymaking at this, for the fashion was strange and new to the Spaniards; but I noticed as I stood next to my cousin Jane that, whilst she pertly struggled with the rest of the nobles, she turned deathly pale and nearly fainted as the splendid Count de Feria kissed her lips.

During the next few months we saw much of the Spaniards that remained, though most of them soon went to the wars; but Feria and a few others remained in England with the King. What passed between him and Jane Dormer at the time I knew not, only that he was to be married to his own niece for the sake of her money, and yet it was clear to us all that he was in love with Jane; and much we teased my cousin about it. But when he came back to England as ambassador four years afterwards, when all hope and joy and health had faded out of the Queen's life, he made love to Jane. almost openly, although the poor Queen prayed and besought him not to pledge himself to her for fear of King Philip's displeasure.

With the Count came a kinsman of his, Don Diego de Sarmiento, an hidalgo of ancient family but small estate, the brightest, bravest, and best man in the world. Ah! the sweet secret meetings we had at Whitehall, at Richmond, and Hampton Court, where the Count pledged his troth to Jane, whilst Don Diego made most rapturous

love to me. All the Court was in gloom and sorrow. The Queer. was slowly dying, public discontent was rising, a disastrous war was being waged against England, and trouble was all around us. we, poor fools, were the happiest creatures alive, and, when the Count and his kinsman had to join the King in Flanders, I thought our hearts would break.

When the Queen was on her death-bed some months later, Feria came back again and brought Diego with him; and as soon as our poor mistress had died, and none knew what course Madam Elizabeth would take, we withdrew from the Court and took up our abode with old Lady Dormer in the part of the palace of the Savoy where she lived. There the Count renewed his suit, much to the distress of the aged lady, who at last peremptorily refused her own. and her son's consent to Jane's marriage, and wrote to my father saying she was sending me and my cousin into the country again, for the Court was full of heretics and evil persons, and was no fit place for young maidens.

Then my cousin and myself did an undutiful thing. We knew the real reason for our banishment was the fear of our pledging ourselves to the strangers, who would take us to live in distant lands, and we could not bear to lose our lovers. So one night late, by the help of our governess and some of the servants, the Count and Diego were admitted, and whilst Lady Dormer slept we were married by the Bishop of Aquila, Jane to the Count, and I to Don Diego. Directly after the ceremony the bridegrooms and the Bishop took boat to Durham Place, where they were staying, and the next morning we were sent off to Buckinghamshire, the good old Lady Dormer congratulating herself upon having, as she thought, got rid of her troublesome charges.

But the two married lovers could not brook separation from their lawful wives for long, and the Count soon confessed all to Sir William Dormer, and took his Countess to her new home in Durham Place. I had more ado to reconcile my own father, for Don Diego was but a poor gentleman, whilst Feria, who was soon to be a Duke, was the King's ambassador and a very great personage. But at length, after many tears, I too left the old hall to go with my husband. All the world knows how the termagant Queen Elizabeth flouted and quarrelled with the new ambassadress, and how, before many months were over, we all went across the sea to Flanders, and thence with King Philip to Spain.

It is thirty-four years since then, and I have never looked upon my birthplace again. My path in life, and that of my cousin the

Duchess, lay apart, and I saw her but rarely, for she was, and is, one of the greatest ladies in Spain, and the most saintly.

But my Diego and I retired as soon as might be to his ancient mansion-house, near Valladolid, in Castile, and there we passed ten years of our simple, happy married life. Two out of our five children only survived their infancy, the eldest and the youngest: Diego, who was born within a few weeks of Jane's son Fernando, now Duke of Feria, and Philip, so christened after our good King.

But at length came stories that the heretics in Flanders were rising in rebellion against the King, and my husband grew restless, rusting, as he said, like a useless sword in its scabbard; for the talk of war to him was like the sound of a trumpet to a charger. So at last I could keep him at my side no longer, and he was fain to put on his armour again to fight the heretics under the Duke of Alba.

It was a bitter trial to me to be left alone, and my trouble was increased by the news which reached me from England. The Catholics there were being sorely persecuted by the Queen, and multitudes were being driven by fear into the new faith. The English, moreover, were helping the rebels, and injuring our King by land and sea. I was ashamed of my countrymen to be thus led away by the caprice of a wicked woman. My father, ever faithful, had been proscribed and persecuted until he had died of trouble and distress; and, worst of all, Millicent my sister had just married a Protestant gentleman named Philip Sendye, whose estate joined ours, and had herself embraced his faith. Thenceforward I wrote to her no more, nor she to me.

Long months passed sometimes without news coming to me from my husband, months full of anxiety and sorrow for the danger he was in; but at last, when he had been gone three years, a pikeman returning wounded to our neighbourhood told me he had seen him fall struck by a harquebuse ball at Brille. I thought I should have gone mad with grief, and was like to die, when suddenly my sorrow was turned to joy by the return of my husband himself, sorely wounded, a shadow of his former self, but still alive. He had lost an arm in the war, and his estate had suffered much in his absence, but withal we rejoiced and were united again once more in bonds of perfect love.

For the next few years our principal care was the fit bringing up of our children. Young Diego, who had been born in 1560 and was now growing almost into manhood, was bold and adventurous like his father, never tired of hearing stories of war and travel. Like his

father, too, he was dark and handsome, and I felt, even thus early, when I saw his bold and ardent spirit, that I could not keep him in the nest. But my younger boy, Philip, who was but a baby when his father went away in the year 1569, was my very, very own. He was fair and beautiful like my own people, with bright blue English eyes and a frank English smile. Almost before he could speak his own tongue he could lisp a few words of the speech of my native land. As he grew up we called him my "inglesito," and he came at last to speak English almost as well as Spanish, whilst his father and brother always mocked at the sound of the tongue they loved not, because they said it was the speech of heretics. But my Philip was as good a Catholic as any in the land, and would fain have entered the priesthood, only that I could not bear to part with him.

After a few years my husband grew restless again. He fretted much that his maimed arm rendered him useless as a soldier, but tidings were flowing through Spain of the vast wealth to be easily gained by adventures in the Indies, which they now call America. Some of our neighbours had come back passing rich after an absence of a year or two, and the whole country was stricken with the goldhunger. God knows how I sought to turn his thoughts to other channels and keep him by my side, but I could not; and in 1578 he sold a great portion of his estate and fitted out an expedition of two caravels for a voyage to the Indies. Young Diego would fain go too, but this I would not suffer, nor his father, who bade him stay at home, for he was nearly a man now, to take care of us, promising him that when he came back with great store of Indian gold young Diego should fit out an expedition on his own account. I saw my husband go with a sinking heart; and little Philip nestled his fair curls in my skirt and told me he would never make me cry by leaving me; but young Diego was all eagerness as he rode out to accompany his father to the port of Santander.

The Indian fleet next year brought me a letter from my husband saying that he had gathered great riches in gold and gems from the natives, and would soon be on his way home, but after that there was silence for a long time. My heart grew heavier and heavier as the months wore on without news, and my son Diego, who was now twenty, could hardly be restrained from attempting to go to the Indies to find his father; for he, poor lad, knew not that the Indies was a large place where it was impossible to seek a single person.

At last the bolt fell. It had long been foreseen by me in my dreams, and I knew it was coming; but still the form in which it

came nearly killed me. My husband's cousin, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who was the Governor of Magellan for the King, wrote to say that one morning a caravel was seen drifting off Port St. Julian, which presently ran aground. High aloft from the yard-arm there dangled by the neck the corpse of a one-armed man, and all the bloodstained deck was strewn with the bodies of the crew, each man with his throat cut. The ship had been captured and ransacked by the accursed Drake, and my husband had been murdered by my own countrymen.

My son's dark brow grew darker as he heard the dire news, and before I could stop him he seized a reliquary containing a piece of a bone of Santiago, and swore solemnly upon it that he would avenge his father, even at the cost of his own life. By tears and entreaties I tried to keep him near me; but I could not wean him from his thought of vengeance. He had no money to fit out expeditions, for we had little left but the old mansion-house with a few acres, and my own portion, with which I had bought two houses in Madrid; but he polished up his dead father's arms and armour, and, without even telling me he was going, rode out one morning for Santander, to join the force which was being embarked there in the Pope's name to succour the brave Irishmen who were holding out against the heretic English. He wrote to me in high spirits before he sailed, telling me that when he had killed ten Englishmen he would come back and stay with me for ever. Alas! he never came back. I learnt afterwards how the craven Italian who commanded them had surrendered the fort at Smerwick at the first summons, and had basely gone on his knees to beg for their lives, whilst Kildare was within a few hours' march of him, hastening to his support. Their lives were promised, but the incarnate devils, Grey and Bingham, broke their word, and cut the throats of eight hundred of them and more. And so my bright lad was slain by the heretic fiends who had murdered my husband, and lies dumbly crying for vengeance under a few inches of bog in Dingle Bay.

I think I must have been mad when I first heard the news. All my soul seemed to turn to hate and bitterness; and, but for my child Philip and his sweet caressing ways, I should have lost my reason for ever. There were times indeed when I would turn even from him with sudden hate and loathing, he was so like an English lad; but this gradually passed away, and I grew so that I could hardly bear him out of my sight.

But as years passed on and Philip became a straight, tall stripling, stories came that our good, patient King, who had suffered so much