“Shall I read on, your Majesty?” asked the young lady, with heightened colour, and a look of adventure and purpose in her eyes. Perhaps, too, there was a look of anger in them--not against the King, for there was a sort of eagerness or appealing in the glance she cast towards his Majesty. The Queen lifted her eyes to the King half doubtfully, for the question seemed to her perilous, Charles being little inclined, as a rule, to listen to serious reading, though he was ever gay in conversation, and alert for witty badinage. His Majesty, however, seemed more than complaisant; he was even boyishly eager. The young lady had been but a short time in the household, having come over with the Queen from Portugal, where she had been brought to the notice of the then Princess by her great coolness and bravery in rescuing a young lady of Lisbon from grave peril. She had told the Princess then that she was the daughter of an exiled English gentleman, and was in the care of her aunt, one Mistress Falkingham, while her father was gone on an expedition to Italy. The Princess, eager to learn English, engaged her, and she had remained in the palace till the Princess left for England. A year passed, and then the Queen of England sent for her, and she had been brought close to the person of her Majesty. At a motion from Charles, who sat upon a couch, idly tapping the buckles on his shoes with a gold-handled staff, the young lady placed herself again at the Queen’s feet and continued reading: “It was when the King was come to Boston town upon the business of the Fens and to confer sundry honours and inquire into the taxes, and for further purpose of visiting a good subject at Louth, who knew of the secret plans of Pym and Hampden, that this shameful violence befel our pious and illustrious prince. With him was my Lord Rippingdale and--” “Ah, ah, my Lord Rippingdale!” said Charles, half aloud, “so this is where my lord and secret history meet--my dear, dumb lord.” Continuing, the young lady read a fair and just account of the King’s meeting with John Enderby, of Enderby’s refusal to accept the knighthood, and of his rescue of the King at Sutterby. “Enderby? Enderby?” interjected the King, “that was not one Sir Garrett Enderby who was with the Scottish army at Dunbar?” “No, your Majesty,” said the young lady, scarcely looking up from the page she held, “Sir Garrett Enderby died in Portugal, where he fled, having escaped from prison and Cromwell’s vengeance.” “What Enderby did this fine thing then? My faith, my martyred father had staunch men--even in Lincolnshire.” “The father of Sir Garrett Enderby it was, your Majesty.” “How came the son by the knighthood? ‘S’death, it seems to me I have a memory of this thing somewhere, if I could but find it!” “His gracious Majesty of sacred memory gave him his knighthood.” “Let me hear the whole story. Is it all there, Mistress Falkingham?” said the King, nodding towards the pages she held.