"Surely," answered Barbara. "I brought the bush from my own home, and gave Mary a cutting. There never was such a rose for bloom and sweetness, we think. My husband he says so too." Barbara blushed and smiled a little when she spoke of Robert, and she and Mary quickly filled a basket with the roses. The next morning Ranulph came again with the Provençal maid of honor to get more flowers, and "strowing herbs,"--sweet-scented plants that gave out their fragrance when trodden upon. The rushes used for floor-covering were often mixed with these on festival days, and when new rushes were to be put down the whole might be swept into the fire and burned. The maids of honor made garlands for the wall, and thus the first breath of air the Queen drew in her grim, small stone rooms high in the castle keep, was laden with the scent of the blossoms of the South. It was a cheerless abode, Mary and Barbara thought. There were no hangings, no costly dishes nor candlesticks, no weapons or anything that could be made into a weapon, nor any jewels or rich clothing. Mary wondered a little that certain richly embroidered tapestries which belonged to the nuns had not been borrowed, for she knew that the Lady Abbess had lent them now and then. Philippa could have told her. "It is well," said the Queen haughtily when she had seen her apartments, "that they have given me no gold-woven arras for my prison. I think I would burn it for the gold--if any of these jailers of mine could be bought perchance." The captivity of the royal prisoner was not, however, very severe. She sometimes rode out under guard, she was allowed to walk upon the terrace and in the walled garden, and she talked sometimes with the troubadour and with old Tomaso. In one of the older towers of the castle the physician had his rooms, and here he read in ancient books, or brewed odd mixtures in his retorts and crucibles. He taught Mary more about the management of a still, the use of herbs and the making of essences than she had ever dreamed there was to learn. Physicians in those days might be quacks or alchemists. Here and there one was what we call an experimental chemist. Nearly a hundred years later some of Tomaso's papers proved most valuable to the University of Padua. PAVEMENT SONG All along the cobblestones by Saint Paul's, Clippety-clack the music runs, quick footfalls, Folk that go a-hurrying, all on business bent, They'll come to us in time, and we are content. So we keep our cobble-shop, by Saint Paul's Hammer-stroke and wax-thread, chasing up the awls, Cobbling is a merry trade,--we'll not change with you, We've leather good cheap, and all we can do! XI SAINT CRISPIN'S DAY HOW CRISPIN, THE SHOEMAKER'S SON, MADE A SHOE FOR A LITTLE DAMSEL, AND NEW STREETS IN LONDON "Rip-rap--tip-tap-- Tick-a-tack--too! Scarlet leather sewed together-- Thus we make a shoe!" --WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.