"If all the world were sought so farre
Who could find such a wight?
Her beauty twinkleth like a starre
Within the frosty night.
Her roseall colour comes and goes
With such a comely grace,
More ruddier too than doth the rose,
Within her lively face."
"And beneath this sonnet," she continued, "a drawing – see! – a heart pierced by a dagger. His heart —my beauty which twinkleth like a starre!"
Who could resist the joy and gladness, the freshness, the youth, the girlishness which emanated from Ursula's entire personality? The two other girls pressed closely round her, giggling like school-children at sight of the rough, sentimental device affixed to the love poem.
The Duchess vainly endeavoured to keep up a semblance of sternness, but she could not meet those laughing eyes, now dark, now blue, now an ever-changing grey, alive with irrepressible mischief, yet full of loving tenderness. She felt that her wrath would soon melt in the sunshine of that girlish smile.
"Lady Ursula, this is most unseemly," she said as coldly as she could. "How came you by this poem?"
Ursula threw her arms round the feebly-resisting old dame.
"Hush!" she whispered, "in your dear old ears! I found it, sweet Duchess.. beside my stockings.. when I came out of my bath!"
"Horror!"
"Now, Duchess! dear, sweet, darling, beautiful Duchess, tell me, who think you wrote this poem? And who —who think you placed it near my stockings?"
The Duchess was almost speechless, partly through genuine horror, but chiefly because a sweet, fresh face was pressed closely to her old cheek.
"'Twas not the Earl of Norfolk," continued Ursula meditatively. She seemed quite unconscious of the enormity of her offence, and sought the eyes of her young friends in confirmation of these various surmises. "He cannot write verses. Nor could it be my lord of Overcliffe, for he would not know where to find my stockings."
"The vanity of the child!" sighed Her Grace. "Think you these great gentlemen would write verses to a chit of a girl like you?"
But her kind eyes, resting with obvious pride on the dainty figure beside her, belied the severity of her words.
"Yes," replied Ursula decisively, "bad ones! – not such beautiful verses as these."
Then she went on with her conjectures.
"And there's my lord of Everingham, and the Marquis of Taunton, and – "
"His Grace of Wessex," suggested Alicia archly, despite the Duchess's warning frown.
"Alas, no!" sighed Ursula, "for he has never been allowed to see me."
"Ursula!" came in ever-recurring feeble protests from the old dowager.
But the young girl was wholly unabashed.
"But he will see me – before to-night," she said.
The others exchanged significant glances.
"To-night?"
"Yes! What have I said? Why do you all look like that?"
"Because your conduct, child, is positively wanton," said the Duchess.
But Ursula only hugged the kind old soul all the more closely.
"Now – now," she coaxed, "don't be angry, darling. There! – look!" she added with mock horror, "your coif is all awry."
With deft fingers she rearranged the delicate lace cap over Her Grace's white curls.
"So," she said, "now you look pretty again – and your nice, fat cheeks have the sweetest of dimples. Nay, I vow, all these young gallants only sigh with love for me because you frown on them so!"
"What a madcap!" sighed the Duchess, mollified.
"You won't be angry with me?" queried the girl earnestly.
"Nay! that depends what mad pranks you have been after."
"Sh – sh! – sh! – 'tis a deadly secret. Barbara, Alicia, come a little closer."
She paused a moment, whilst all three of them crowded round Her Grace of Lincoln's chair.
Then Ursula said solemnly —
"The Queen is in love with my future husband!"
The Duchess of Lincoln nearly fell backwards in a faint.
"Ursula!" she gasped.
"Nay, that's not the secret," continued Ursula, quite unperturbed, "for that is town-talk, and every one at Court knows that she won't let him see me for fear he should fall in love with me. And my lord Cardinal is furious because he wants the Queen to marry Philip of Spain, and he is wishing His Grace of Wessex down there, where all naughty Cardinals go."
"Child!.. child!."
"But the days are slipping by, darling," added the young girl, with just a shade of seriousness in her eyes. "All these intriguers may fight as much as they like, but if I do not wed His Grace of Wessex, if he should be inveigled into marrying the Queen, I must to the convent. My dear father made me swear it on his deathbed, when I was beside myself with grief, and scarce knew what I did. 'There is but one true gentleman to whom I would trust my child,' he said to me; 'swear to me, Ursula, that if Wessex claims you not, that you will never marry any one else, but spend your days in happy singleness in a convent. Swear it, little one.' He was so ill, so dear, I swore and – "
"The convent is the proper place for such a feather-brain as yourself," concluded the Duchess with as gruff a voice as she could command.
"But I do not wish to be a nun," protested Ursula, as tears began to gather in her eyes, "and I do want to wed Wessex, who is handsome – and gallant – and witty – and – and," she added coquettishly, "when he sees me – I vow he'll not let me go to a convent either, so – "
She leant closer to the kind dowager and once more whispered confidentially in her ear.
"So, as the Queen is engaged in prayers for at least half an hour, I've sent His Grace word by one of the pages that the Duchess of Lincoln desired his presence in this chamber – here!"
But this was really past bearing.
"I!." exclaimed the Duchess in horror. "I?.. desire his presence?.. Merciful heavens! what will His Grace think?"
Once more Ursula, like the veritable child that she was, was dancing like mad round the room, now alone, clapping her tiny hands together, then seizing one of her companions by the waist, she whirled with her, round and round, until she fell back breathless against the Duchess's chair. And all the while her tongue went prattling on, now talking at top speed, anon singing out the words in the madness of her glee.
"And he is coming, dear Duchess," she said. "'He'll attend upon Her Grace at once!' these were his words to that pet of a page, and he'll see me – and – and – "
Now she paused, kneeling beside her old friend, putting coaxing arms round the bulky figure of the kind soul.
"But don't tell him my name all at once, Duchess darling," she whispered entreatingly; "let him fall in love with me without knowing that I am his affianced bride – for that might prejudice him against me. Just mumble something when he asks my name, and let me do the rest. Give me another kiss, darling. Alicia – Alicia," she cried in feverish anxiety, "is my kerchief straight at the back? and – and – oh, my hair!"
Still in that same madly-excited mood, she ran to a small oval mirror which hung on one of the walls, close to the great bay window.
The Duchess during that brief moment's respite tried to collect her scattered wits.
"But oh! what shall I say to His Grace?" she moaned distractedly. "Child! child! to your folly there is no end!"
A quickly smothered shriek from Ursula now