Two Penniless Princesses | Page 4

the waters, with eyes of the same tint as the hair. Even the
sea-breeze failed to give more than a slight touch of colour to her
somewhat freckled complexion; and the limbs that rested in a careless
attitude on the stone bench were long and languid, though with years
and favourable circumstances there might be a development of beauty
and dignity. Her lips were crooning at intervals a mournful old Scottish
tune, sometimes only humming, sometimes uttering its melancholy
burthen, and she now and then touched a small harp that stood by her
side on the seat.
She did not turn round when a step approached, till a hand was laid on
her shoulder, when she started, and looked up into the face of another
girl, on a smaller scale, with a complexion of the lily-and-rose kind,
fair hair under her hood, with a hawk upon her wrist, and blue eyes
dancing at the surprise of her sister.
'Eleanor in a creel, as usual!' she cried.
'I thought it was only one of the bairns,' was the answer.
'They might coup over the walls for aught thou seest,' returned the
new-comer. 'If it were not for little Mary what would become of the
poor weans?'
'What will become of any of us?' said Eleanor. 'I was gazing out over
the sea and wishing we could drift away upon it to some land of rest.'
'The Glenuskie folk are going to try another land,' said Jean. 'I was in
the bailey-court even now playing at ball with Jamie when in comes a
lay-brother, with a letter from Sir Patrick to say that he is coming the
night to crave permission from Jamie to go with his wife to France.
Annis, as you know, is betrothed to the son of his French friends,

Malcolm is to study at the Paris University, and Davie to be in the
Scottish Guards to learn chivalry like his father. And the Leddy of
Glenuskie--our Cousin Lilian--is going with them.'
'And she will see Margaret,' said Eleanor. 'Meg the dearie! Dost
remember Meg, Jeanie?'
'Well, well do I remember her, and how she used to let us nestle in her
lap and sing to us. She sang like thee, Elleen, and was as mother-like as
Mary is to the weans, but she was much blithesomer--at least before our
father was slain.'
'Sweetest Meg! My whole heart leaps after her,' cried Eleanor, with a
fervent gesture.
'I loved her better than Isabel, though she was not so bonnie,' said Jean.
'Jeanie, Jeanie,' cried Eleanor, turning round with a vehemence
strangely contrasting with her previous language, 'wherefore should we
not go with Glenuskie to be with Meg at Bourges?'
Jeanie opened her blue eyes wide.
'Go to the French King's Court?' she said.
'To the land of chivalry and song,' exclaimed Eleanor, 'where they have
courts of love and poetry, and tilts and tourneys and minstrelsy, and the
sun shines as it never does in this cold bleak north; and above all there
is Margaret, dear tender Margaret, almost a queen, as a queen she will
be one day. Oh! I almost feel her embrace.'
'It might be well,' said Jean, in the matter-of-fact tone of a practical
young lady; 'mewed up in these dismal castles, we shall never get
princely husbands like our sisters. I might be Queen of Beauty, I doubt
me whether you are fair enough, Eleanor.'
'Oh, that is not what I think of,' said Eleanor. 'It is to see our own
Margaret, and to see and hear the minstrel knights, instead of the rude
savages here, scarce one of whom knows what knighthood means!'
'Ay, and they will lay hands on us and wed us one of these days,'
returned Jean, 'unless we vow ourselves as nuns, and I have no mind
for that.'
'Nor would a convent always guard us,' said Eleanor; 'these reivers do
not stick at sanctuary. Now in that happy land ladies meet with
courtesy, and there is a minstrel king like our father, Rene is his name,
uncle to Margaret's husband. Oh! it would be a very paradise.'
'Let us go, let us go!' exclaimed Jean.

'Go!' said Mary, who had drawn nearer to them while they spoke.
'Whither did ye say?'
'To France--to sister Margaret and peace and sunshine,' said Eleanor.
'Eh!' said the girl, a pale fair child of twelve; 'and what would poor
Jamie and the weans do, wanting their titties?'
'Ye are but a bairn, Mary,' was Jean's answer. 'We shall do better for
Jamie by wedding some great lords in the far country than by waiting
here at home.'
'And James will soon have a queen of his own to guide him,' added
Eleanor.
'I'll no quit Jamie or the weans,' said little Mary resolutely, turning