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here,” Elizabeth reminded her.

    “But they could prevent anyone else from getting in ,” pointed out Richard, the quick-witted.

    “You mean they could starve us?” groaned Cicely, to whom no worse calamity was conceivable.

    “Oh, for the love of our Lady, be sensible, all of you!” exclaimed Elizabeth, shooing the two smaller girls back to their dolls. “Why should Uncle Gloucester want to starve us? Probably he will ask leave to come and see us soon and bring you all some sweetmeats. Do try to remember that he is in as deep a grief as we are.”

    “He will go to his precious wife first,” muttered Cicely, pouting at her sister's unaccustomed rebuke.

    “And why not?” asked Richard. “I like Aunt Anne.”

    “It is one of the nicest things about him that he loves her so,” reflected Elizabeth, feeling that so human a trait made him more like the rest of them and therefore all the less to be feared.

    But the Duke did not beg leave to come and see them. Perhaps he was worn out with forced marches, or—as Richard suggested— had not had time to change his dusty armour. Or perhaps it was just that he avoided as much as most men the edge of an angry woman's tongue.

    Instead they had a visit from their host, the Abbot. “The Protector is back, Madam,” he announced, having been bidden to sup with the Queen.

    “The Protector?” The title, if not the news, stunned her.

    It being Friday, the Abbot helped himself to fish. “He styles himself so,” he said, not liking to tell her that he had already by common consent had the title thrust upon him.

    “And fills our peaceful courtyards with soldiery!” The poor Queen had scarcely eaten for days, and even now, in spite of her daughter's anxious urging, only picked distraitly at some fruit. “And what of Edward?” she asked immediately.

    “The Duke has taken him to lodge the night in the town house of the Bishop of Ely.”

    Tears rose to her tired eyes. “Not with me, his mother,” she said.

    “Dear Madam,” soothed the Bishop compassionately, “they say the young King was overtired from the long journey and needs immediate sleep.”

    “One is scarcely surprised after the shock of seeing his favourite uncle, who was appointed his tutor and who has always done everything for him, arrested like a common traitor. Surely, too, it was enough to kill him, coming across England at that pace. I would have you know, my dear Abbot, that for all his sturdy looks he is not so wiry as young Richard here.” After brooding on her wrongs a while the Queen added with inconsistency, “To-day is the fourth of May. He was to have been crowned this day.”

    “The heralds have given it out in every ward of the City that his Grace will be crowned as soon as he is rested.”

    “And who told the heralds?” demanded the widow of their late master.

    “Milord the Duke.”

    “The Protector?” She laughed shortly. “Heaven send he proves to be one!”

    “But is he not the most obvious person?”

    “We will see what milord Hastings has to say about that. At least there will have to be a Council-meeting. I shall tell them—”

    “But, Madam—”

    No one present dared to remind the Queen in so many words that, having withdrawn into the sanctuary of the Church, she could no longer expect to attend Council-meetings ; but during their embarrassed silence she sat realizing the possible results of the one grave mistake she had made. Everything must depend upon Hastings now. Being loath to admit the disadvantages of the situation, she changed the subject. “How did London welcome my son?” she asked. And all young Edward's family hung upon the Abbot's words.

    “With every possible show of deference and loyalty, Madam,” he assured her. “They brought the late King's cloak of purple and ermine for him to wear.”

    “Was it not horribly heavy?” asked Richard, leaning eagerly over the back of his mother's chair.

    “Indeed it was, my little Duke,”