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he said. “You stoop too much.”
    Arthur obediently straightened his shoulders. There was no resentment. How differently young Henry would have behaved! But of course there would have been no necessity to criticize Henry's deportment.
    We should get more sons, thought the King anxiously.
    “Well, my son,” he said, “very soon now you will be face to face with your bride.”
    “Yes, Father.”
    “You must not let her think that you are a child, you know. She is almost a year older than you are.”
    “I know it, Father.”
    “Very well. Prepare yourself to meet her.”
    Arthur asked leave to retire and was glad when he reached his own apartment. He felt sick with anxiety. What should he say to his bride? What must he do with her? His brother Henry had talked slyly of these matters. Henry knew a great deal about them already. Henry ought to have been the elder son.
    He would have made a good king, thought Arthur. I should have done better in the Church.
    He let himself brood on the peace of monastic life. What relief! To be alone, to read, to meditate, not to have to take a prominent part in ceremonies, not to have to suffer continual reproach because a few hours in thesaddle tired him, because he could never learn to joust and play the games at which Henry excelled.
    “If only,” he murmured to himself, “I were not the first-born. If only I could miraculously change places with my brother Henry, how happy I could be!”
    THE NEXT MORNING the King, with the Prince beside him, set out on the journey to Dogmersfield.
    Almost immediately it began to rain, and the King looked uneasily at his son while Arthur squirmed in the saddle. His cough would almost certainly come back if he suffered a wetting, and although the rain was fine it was penetrating.
    Arthur always felt that it was his fault that he had not been born strong. He tried to smile and look as though there was nothing he enjoyed so much as a ride in the rain.
    When they were within a few miles of the Bishop's Palace the King saw a rider galloping towards his party, and in a very short time he recognized the Spanish Ambassador Ayala.
    Ayala drew up before Henry and sweeping off his hat bowed gracefully.
    “News has been brought to me that Your Grace is on the way to see the Infanta.”
    “That news is now confirmed,” answered the King. “So impatient was our young bridegroom that, having heard that the Infanta was at Dogmersfield, he could wait no longer. He himself has come hot-foot from Wales. He yearns to see his bride.”
    Arthur tried to force his wet face into an expression which would confirm his father's words as the Spanish Ambassador threw a sly smile in his direction which clearly conveyed his knowledge of the boy's nervousness.
    “Alas,” said Ayala, “Your Grace will be unable to see the bride.”
    “I… unable to see the bride!” said the King in a cold, quiet voice.
    “The King and Queen of Spain insist that their daughter should observe the customs of a high-born Spanish lady. She will be veiled until after the ceremony, and not even her bridegroom may see her face until then.”
    The King was silent. A terrible suspicion had come into his mind; he was the most suspicious of men. Why should he not look on the face of the Infanta? What had the Spanish Sovereigns to hide? Was this some deformed creature they were sending him? “Not until after the ceremony.” The words sounded ominous.
    “This seems a strange condition,” said Henry slowly.
    “Sire, it is a Spanish custom.”
    “I like it not.”
    He turned his head slightly and said over his shoulder: “We will form a council, my lords. Here is an urgent matter to discuss. Ambassador, you will excuse us. It will take us but a short time to come to a decision, I imagine.”
    Ayala bowed his head and drew his horse to the side of the road while the King waved a hand towards a nearby field.
    “Come with us, Arthur,” he said. “You must join our council.”
    Henry placed