Presently Mary resumed. "Long, long did I hope my little one was safely sheltered from all my troubles in the dear old cloisters of Soissons, and that it was caution in my good aunt the abbess that prevented my hearing of her; but through my faithful servants, my Lord Flemyng, who had been charged to speed her from Scotland, at length let me know that the ship in which she sailed, the Bride of Dunbar, had been never heard of more, and was thought to have been cast away in a tempest that raged two days after she quitted Dunbar. And I-I shed some tears, but I could well believe that the innocent babe had been safely welcomed among the saints, and I could not grieve that she was, as I thought, spared from the doom that rests upon the race of Stewart. Till one week back, I gave thanks for that child of sorrow as cradled in Paradise."

Then followed a pause, and then Cis said in a low trembling voice, "And it was from the wreck of the Bride of Dunbar that I was taken?"

"Thou hast said it, child! My bairn, my bonnie bairn!" and the girl was absorbed in a pa.s.sionate embrace and strained convulsively to a bosom which heaved with the sobs of tempestuous emotion, and the caresses were redoubled upon her again and again with increasing fervour that almost frightened her.

"Speak to me! Speak to me! Let me hear my child"s voice."

"Oh, madam-"

"Call me mother! Never have I heard that sound from my child"s lips. I have borne two children, two living children, only to be stripped of both. Speak, child-let me hear thee."

Cis contrived to say "Mother, my mother," but scarcely with effusion. It was all so strange, and she could not help feeling as if Susan were the mother she knew and was at ease with. All this was much too like a dream, from which she longed to awake. And there was Mrs. Kennedy too, rising up and crying quite indignantly-"Mother indeed! Is that all thou hast to say, as though it were a task under the rod, when thou art owned for her own bairn by the fairest and most ill-used queen in Christendom? Out on thee! Have the Southron loons chilled thine heart and made thee no leal to thine ain mother that hath hungered for thee?"

The angry tones, and her sense of her own shortcomings, could only make Cis burst into tears.

"Hush, hush, nurse! thou shalt not chide my new-found bairn. She will learn to ken us better in time if they will leave her with us," said Mary. "There, there; greet not so sair, mine ain. I ask thee not to share my sorrows and my woes. That Heaven forefend. I ask thee but to come from time to time and cheer my nights, and lie on my weary bosom to still its ache and yearning, and let me feel that I have indeed a child."

"Oh, mother, mother!" Cis cried again in a stifled voice, as one who could not utter her feelings, but not in the cold dry tone that had called forth Mrs. Kennedy"s wrath. "Pardon me, I know not-I cannot say what I would. But oh! I would do anything for-for your Grace."

"All that I would ask of thee is to hold thy peace and keep our counsel. Be Cicely Talbot by day as ever. Only at night be mine-my child, my Bride, for so wast thou named after our Scottish patroness. It was a relic of her sandals that was hung about thy neck, and her ship in which thou didst sail; and lo, she heard and guarded thee, and not merely saved thee from death, but provided thee a happy joyous home and well-nurtured childhood. We must render her our thanks, my child. Beata Brigitta, ora pro n.o.bis."

"It was the good G.o.d Almighty who saved me, madam," said Cis bluntly.

"Alack! I forgot that yonder good lady could not fail to rear thee in the outer darkness of her heresy; but thou wilt come back to us, my ain wee thing! Heaven forbid that I should deny Whose Hand it was that saved thee, but it was at the blessed Bride"s intercession. No doubt she reserved for me, who had turned to her in my distress, this precious consolation! But I will not vex thy little heart with debate this first night. To be mother and child is enough for us. What art thou pondering?"

"Only, madam, who was it that told your Grace that I was a stranger?"

"The marks, bairnie, the marks," said Mary. "They told their own tale to good Nurse Jeanie; ay, and to Gorion, whom we blamed for his cruelty in branding my poor little lammie."

"Ah! but," said Cicely, "did not yonder woman with the beads and bracelets bid him look?"

If it had been lighter, Cicely would have seen that the Queen was not pleased at the inquiry, but she only heard the answer from Jean"s bed, "Hout no, I wad she knew nought of thae brands. How should she?"

"Nay," said Cicely, "she-no, it was Tibbott the huckster-woman told me long ago that I was not what I seemed, and that I came from the north-I cannot understand! Were they the same?"

"The bairn kens too much," said Jean. "Dinna ye deave her Grace with your speirings, my lammie. Ye"ll have to learn to keep a quiet sough, and to see mickle ye canna understand here."

"Silence her not, good nurse," said the Queen, "it imports us to know this matter. What saidst thou of Tibbott?"

"She was the woman who got Antony Babington into trouble," explained Cicely. "I deemed her a witch, for she would hint strange things concerning me, but my father always believed she was a kinsman of his, who was concerned in the Rising of the North, and who, he said, had seen me brought in to Hull from the wreck."

"Ay?" said the Queen, as a sign to her to continue.

"And meseemed," added Cicely timidly, "that the strange woman at Tideswell who talked of beads and bracelets minded me of Tibbott, though she was younger, and had not her grizzled brows; but father says that cannot be, for Master Cuthbert Langston is beyond seas at Paris."

"Soh! that is well," returned Mary, in a tone of relief. "See, child. That Langston of whom you speak was a true friend of mine. He has done much for me under many disguises, and at the time of thy birth he lived as a merchant at Hull, trading with Scotland. Thus it may have become known to him that the babe he had seen rescued from the wreck was one who had been embarked at Dunbar. But no more doth he know. The secret of thy birth, my poor bairn, was entrusted to none save a few of those about me, and all of those who are still living thou hast already seen. Lord Flemyng, who put thee on board, believed thee the child of James Hepburn of Lillieburn, the archer, and of my poor Mary Stewart, a kinswoman of mine ain; and it was in that belief doubtless that he, or Tibbott, as thou call"st him, would have spoken with thee."

"But the woman at Tideswell," said Cis, who was getting bewildered-"Diccon said that she spake to Master Gorion."

"That did she, and pointed thee out to him. It is true. She is another faithful friend of mine, and no doubt she had the secret from him. But no more questions, child. Enough that we sleep in each other"s arms."

It was a strange night. Cis was more conscious of wonder, excitement, and a certain exultation, than of actual affection. She had not been bred up so as to hunger and crave for love. Indeed she had been treated with more tenderness and indulgence than was usual with people"s own daughters, and her adopted parents had absorbed her undoubting love and respect.

Queen Mary"s fervent caresses were at least as embarra.s.sing as they were gratifying, because she did not know what response to make, and the novelty and wonder of the situation were absolutely distressing.

They would have been more so but for the Queen"s tact. She soon saw that she was overwhelming the girl, and that time must be given for her to become accustomed to the idea. So, saying tenderly something about rest, she lay quietly, leaving Cis, as she supposed, to sleep. This, however, was impossible to the girl, except in s.n.a.t.c.hes which made her have to prove to herself again and again that it was not all a dream. The last of these wakenings was by daylight, as full as the heavy curtains would admit, and she looked up into a face that was watching her with such tender wistfulness that it drew from her perforce the word "Mother."

"Ah! that is the tone with the true ring in it. I thank thee and I bless thee, my bairn," said Mary, making over her the sign of the cross, at which the maiden winced as at an incantation. Then she added, "My little maid, we must be up and stirring. Mind, no word of all this. Thou art Cicely Talbot by day, as ever, and only my child, my Bride, mine ain wee thing, my princess by night. Canst keep counsel?"

"Surely, madam," said Cis, "I have known for five years that I was a foundling on the wreck, and I never uttered a word."

Mary smiled. "This is either a very simple child or a very canny one," she said to Jean Kennedy. "Either she sees no boast in being of royal blood, or she deems that to have the mother she has found is worse than the being the nameless foundling."

"Oh! madam, mother, not so! I meant but that I had held my tongue when I had something to tell!"

"Let thy secrecy stand thee in good stead, child," said the Queen. "Remember that did the bruit once get abroad, thou wouldest a.s.suredly be torn from me, to be mewed up where the English Queen could hinder thee from ever wedding living man. Ay, and it might bring the head of thy foster-father to the block, if he were thought to have concealed the matter. I fear me thou art too young for such a weighty secret."

"I am seventeen years old, madam," returned Cis, with dignity; "I have kept the other secret since I was twelve."

"Then thou wilt, I trust, have the wisdom not to take the princess on thee, nor to give any suspicion that we are more to one another than the caged bird and the bright linnet that comes to sing on the bars of her cage. Only, child, thou must get from Master Talbot these tokens that I hear of. Hast seen them?"

"Never, madam; indeed I knew not of them."

"I need them not to know thee for mine own, but it is not well that they should be in stranger hands. Thou canst say-But hush, we must be mum for the present."

For it became necessary to admit the Queen"s morning draught of spiced milk, borne in by one of her suite who had to remain uninitiated; and from that moment no more confidences could be exchanged, until the time that Cis had to leave the Queen"s chamber to join the rest of the household in the daily prayers offered in the chapel. Her dress and hair had, according to promise, been carefully attended to, but she was only finished and completed just in time to join her adopted parents on the way down the stairs. She knelt in the hall for their blessing-an action as regular and as mechanical as the morning kiss and greeting now are between parent and child; but there was something in her face that made Susan say to herself, "She knows all."

They could not speak to one another till not only matins but breakfast were ended, and then-after the somewhat solid meal-the ladies had to put on their out-of-door gear to attend Queen Mary in her daily exercise. The dress was not much, high summer as it was, only a loose veil over the stiff cap, and a fan in the gloved hand to act as parasol. However the retirement gave Cicely an interval in which to say, "O mother, she has told me," and as Susan sat holding out her arms, the adopted child threw herself on her knees, hiding her face on that bosom where she had found comfort all her life, and where, her emotion at last finding full outlet, she sobbed without knowing why for some moments, till she started nervously at the entrance of Richard, saying, "The Queen is asking for you both. But how now? Is all told?"

"Ay," whispered his wife.

"So! And why these tears? Tell me, my maid, was not she good to thee? Doth she seek to take thee into her own keeping?"

"Oh no, sir, no," said Cis, still kneeling against the motherly knee and struggling with her sobs. "No one is to guess. I am to be Cicely Talbot all the same, till better days come to her."

"The safer and the happier for thee, child. Here are two honest hearts that will not cast thee off, even if, as I suspect, yonder lady would fain be quit of thee."

"Oh no!" burst from Cicely, then, shocked at having committed the offence of interrupting him, she added, "Dear sir, I crave your pardon, but, indeed, she is all fondness and love."

"Then what means this pa.s.sion?" he asked, looking from one to the other.

"It means only that the child"s senses and spirits are overcome," said Susan, "and that she scarce knows how to take this discovery. Is it not so, sweetheart?"

"Oh, sweet mother, yes in sooth. You will ever be mother to me indeed!"

"Well said, little maid!" said Richard. "Thou mightest search the world over and never hap upon such another."

"But she oweth duty to the true mother," said Susan, with her hand on the girl"s neck.