"Ay! but if we can have the best chamber, I don't see why not, lady," said the lady's-maid, who by this time had followed. Sir Osborne Maurice advanced. "If it is to me," said he, "that the best chamber has been assigned, I shall feel myself honoured in resigning it to a lady, but infinitely more, if my memory serves me right, and that lady be Lady Constance de Grey." "Good heaven, Master Osborne Maurice!" said the lady, colouring again with evidently no very unpleasant feelings. "I thought you were in Flanders. When did----?" But she had no time to finish her phrase, for the old clergyman cast himself upon Sir Osborne's neck, and wept like a child. "My dear Osborne!" cried he, "how? when? where? But I am a fool; how like you have grown to your dear lady mother! Pardon me, my lord--I mean, sir--I don't know what I'm talking of. But you know you were my first pupil, and like my child; and I never thought to see you again before my old eyes were covered with the dust. Alack! alack! what a fine man thou art grown! 'Tis just five years, come May, since you came to take leave of me at the house of this my honoured lady's father; and mind you how you taught her to shoot with the bow, and how pleased my good lord her father was to see you?" "I have not forgotten one circumstance of the kind hospitality I then received," said Sir Osborne, "and never shall, so long as I have memory of anything." "Ay, but she has lost the archery," said the old clergyman. "She has lost it entirely." "But I have not lost the bow, Master Osborne," said the lady, with a smile: "I have it still, and shall some day relearn to draw it." There was a strange difference between the manner of the clergyman and that of the lady, when addressing the young knight. Lady Constance evidently saw him with pleasure; but she seemed to feel, or to suppose, that there existed between them a difference of rank, which made some reserve on her part necessary, while, on the contrary, the old man gave way to unlimited joy at meeting with his former pupil, though qualified by an air of respect and deference which mingled strangely with the expressions of fondness that he poured forth. By this time, the host and hostess having removed from the fire, and the Portingal captain having quietly slipped away in the bustle, no one remained near it but Jekin Groby; and, he not being very terrific of aspect, Lady Constance placed herself in one of the vacant seats till such time as her chamber should be prepared. Sir Osborne wrung the old tutor's hand affectionately, and whispered, while he followed to the side of Lady Constance, "I have a word to say to you, and much upon which to consult you." "Good, good!" replied the old man, in the same subdued tone, "when the lady has retired."