"O holy Mother!" cried I. "Where art thou about to get it?" said she. "I am sure I do not know!" I replied blankly. "Thou shouldst know, my child," she responded gently. "Think about it." I cannot guess what she means. I am sure I may think about that for a year, and be no nearer when I have done. I have had a great pleasure to-day, in the shape of a letter from Monseigneur our father, addressed to Guy, but meant for us all three. He wrote about six months after we set out; and I should hope he has before now received my letter, which I sent off on the first opportunity after our arrival in the Holy City. Every body seems to be well, and Alix has a baby boy, whom she means to call after Monseigneur—Geoffrey. There is no other special news. Level, he says, misses us sorely, and lies at my door with his nose between his paws, as if he were considering what it could all mean. I wonder whether he thinks he comes to any satisfactory solution. The Lord King, I hear, has been more indisposed for some days past. The Lady Queen is very attentive to him. Lady Isabel and her lord have gone through another tremendous quarrel,—about what I do not know. Early yesterday morning our sister Eschine’s second baby was announced, and in the afternoon the holy Patriarch baptized it by Guy’s name. Amaury was in ecstasies with his boy; but alas! in the evening the poor little thing fell into convulsions, and barely lived to see the dawn of another day. Amaury passed from the climax of triumph to the depths of despair. He growled and snarled at every body, and snapped at Eschine in particular, as though he thought she had let her child die on purpose to vex him. That she could be in as much distress as himself, did not seem to occur to him. If anything could have provoked me more than Amaury’s unreasonableness, it would have been the calm patience with which Eschine took it. There he stalked about, grumbling and growling. "Why did you all let the child die?" he wanted to know—as if we could have helped it. "There is not one of you has any sense!"—as if he had! "Alix’s boy manages to live. She knows how to treat him. Women are all idiots!" (Alix, apparently, not being a woman.) Poor Eschine lay still, a few tears now and then making their way down her white cheeks, and meekly begging her lord and master’s pardon for what she had not done. When he was gone, she said—I think to anticipate what she saw on the tip of my tongue— "Thou knowest, Elaine dear, he is not angry with me. Men do set such store by a son. It is only natural he should be very much distressed." She will persist in making excuses for him. "Distressed?—well!" said I. "But he does not need to be so silly and angry. Natural!—well, yes,—I think it is natural to Amaury to be an idiot. I always did think so." "O Lynette! don’t, dear!" pleaded Eschine.