came up to Frances and, seizing her arm, placed it in his own. She was shaking with fright and fear for herself, and perhaps for her lover.

"The Lady Suffolk waits her daughter in the barge. Come, Frances. To-morrow, sir, we will arrange to settle this difference. The Countess of Essex does not need your escort."

"The Countess needs no man's escort," said the girl, coming to her courage again and withdrawing her arm from her husband. "She can take care of her own ribands. What folly to make a play actor's scene of a bit of merry nonsense. Come, both of you. Shake hands over it and let me be away home. It is time enough, surely."

Carr, who obeyed her in all things, held out his hand frankly enough, and Essex, gazing at her flashing, determined eyes, took it slowly and dropped it again as an unwilling child obeys the letter of his governor's command.

"And now," said Frances, demurely curtsying to her young husband, “I pray you take me to my mother, or, as Master Daniell says in his poem, ""Tis ours to lead the beauteous nymph of crystal streaming Lea down to her Mother Thames." "

She broke into a silvery laugh, and Carr remembered, with pleasure, it was his lines she spoke. The two men bowed gravely and the Earl gave his arm to his wife.

It was thus husband and wife met in the Queen's garden, four years after their marriage.

Chapter IX: Mrs. Turner

HE return of Essex to claim his bride came at ́an unfortunate moment, but it had to be faced. For here was Robert Devereux with his fat cheeks and heavy jaws blinking his dull eyes at the beautiful girl that belonged to him and demanding possession of his chattel.

It was about this time that the King promoted Sir Robert to the peerage under the title of Lord Carr of Brancepeth and Viscount Rochester, and he, with his secretary Overbury, had ridden north with the King, who was away on a progress of feasting and hunting. Overbury was pleased to carry his master away from temptation. He feared too close an alliance with the Howards as dangerous to his own ambitions.

Essex made formal application for the custody of his wife to her father, the Earl of Suffolk. The admiral conceded his son-in-law's right, but, with a shrewd instinct that there might be difficulties ahead, craved leave to consult the girl's mother about the date of fulfilment. Meanwhile, he intimated that the Earl of Essex would always be a welcome guest at his house.

But though Essex visited the house and paid court to his bride and described the splendour of his house at Chartley, he could not persuade the young lady to name a day when she would accompany him thither.

At length he became impatient, and told the Suffolks that their daughter must be ready to travel by the last day of September. Frances resented her husband's brusque ways. Other young men sued her with honeyed phrase; he threw orders to her as to a dog. She rebelled. She told her mother in round words that the husband

they had chosen for her was a boor, and that she would not live with the man. When her father heard of this he launched a battery of sea oaths at his daughter's head and quoted commandments of obedience, at which she pouted impatience. Her mother pleaded with her, and pictured the glories of her position, the honour of the alliance, and the disgrace into which they would all fall with the King if she made trouble, since he himself had arranged and sanctioned the match. These things touched her heart more nearly.

Had the sulky lover had any spark of romance or passion in him he might have won the girl's heart, or at least enough of it to have made marriage possible to her. But he was a mere huckster in the business. He discussed his rights with the parents of the girl instead of wooing his bride. She was his, and he was of an age to set up housekeeping. He did not propose to waste his time dangling at her skirts in London, but announced that he would ride down to Chartley and make his house ready for her reception, and then in September he would return to fetch her and carry her home. That was his ultimatum.

Frances fled to Northampton House, and threw herself at old Dominic's feet, begging him to save her. The old man was dismayed to find that her passion for Carr was a real blaze of fire not to be extinguished with mere words of entreaty or command. But he was far too wise a man to hurry matters with the girl. He spoke to her as a rational being, pointing out, as her mother had done, the great position she would hold in the world as the Countess of Essex, the wealth that would be at her disposal, and rallied her on being able to manage her husband and live her own life in her own way. The burden of his talk was the freedom of marriage and the power of a woman of wit to govern husband and household, to minister to her own pleasures. But the girl listened without enthusiasm. In her mind's eye she saw two pictures—a golden youth, fresh, buoyant, and

loving, kneeling at her feet and adoring her as a goddess one to whom she could yield herself at last with honest joy, and in dark contrast to this vision was a dull, uncouth country clod who would carry her to a prison house and compel submission. Her father might rail at her, her mother might cajole her with soothing words, and old Dominic might quote wise saws and plead for sane views of life as it is, but they could not cheat her of her dreams. The girl was in love.

Then suddenly a ray of hope came to all of them. Essex fell ill of a fever and lay in a dangerous condition for many weeks. The girl was distraught with fear of his recovery. There were moments when she could have prayed for his death had she dared the blasphemy. Her uncle watched her anxiety and knew and perhaps shared her hopes. She would sit for hours in the window seat of his library and gaze at the river, many a time wishing herself at the bottom of it and the grey tide flowing over her-her miseries forgotten. She dared not ask for news of her husband's health lest it should be good news. Life without her beloved was tasteless to her, yet she had not the courage to cease living. There was a selfish feeling in her heart that fate could not mean to give her body and soul to any one but the man of her choice. Why could she not peer into the future and know if any happiness remained to her in the years

to come?

And it chanced on the same day her little mind was full of these reckless thoughts that Mrs. Turner came to Northampton House, having, indeed, been sent for by the Earl, who began to think that a woman's wiles might be more successful in medicining the love-sick girl than the wisdom of a man.

Mistress Anne Turner was well known to all the ladies of the Court as one who could cunningly design robes and new-fangled farthingales and strange ruffs. No masque was complete, as Inigo Jones himself allowed, unless her brains and fingers handled the dresses. There

was a wondrous yellow starch she brewed of which she only knew the secret, and to-day it was all the fashion. But she would not sell her secrets for money so often as she would exchange them for other secrets of the wives and daughters of the great who visited her little house in Paternoster Row.

This it was that made her of value to Howard, who learned from her many things that were useful to him in his daily management of men and affairs. The world, who heard of her visits to Northampton House, shrugged their shoulders and smiled. That the old bachelor should entertain the pretty lady, and that she should be a willing visitor to the great house, seemed very fitting and amusing to the gossips in St. Paul's. But the Earl cared nothing for scandal as long as he had a clever spy in his pay whom the world took for a mere woman of pleasure.

He was pleased to see her, and found she already knew enough of the girl's troubles to start on her task without delay.

"I hear the Earl of Essex is recovering," he said to pretty Mrs. Turner as they walked upstairs to the library. "That will be no good news for his Countess," said the woman resignedly.

"You need not break it to her. But you must win her over to reason. The Earl must take her to Chartley at the end of the month. We have made the contract and must keep our bargain. Once he has her away there in his keeping the rest is his business."

Mrs. Turner laughed a merry laugh.

"We poor women are driven to the market or the slaughter like cattle.”

"And queer cattle some of you be," said the old man, patting her pleasantly on her shapely arm. "But here is your patient, and if you can doctor her into a better frame of mind I shall be grateful."

The pretty lady smiled winningly, looking up to his face, and nodded assurance.