'Elizabeth, Elizabeth! where are you?' cried princess Mary one afternoon, when the rain was pouring down so heavily that you could not see that there was a river at all. 'My lady Scrope has some new toys, and will teach us a fresh game. It is called _maritaux_, and the boys play it, and I want to learn it. Be quick, be quick! where _are_ you?' But no Elizabeth came running eagerly to throw the little quoits. Unperceived by her nurse, she had stolen away to that part of the palace where she knew she would find her father, and, creeping softly to the table in front of which he was sitting, she knelt down beside him to ask for his blessing, as the queen had always bidden her. He lifted her on to his knee, and she saw that the open book before him contained strange figures and circles, and that the paper beside it which the king had written was covered with more of these odd marks. 'What does it mean? and why do you look like that?' she asked, half frightened. King Edward did not answer, but, catching up the paper, carried her to a high window, where he set her down in the seat formed by the thickness of the wall. Glancing round, to make sure that none of the men-at-arms who guarded the door could hear him, he bade her hide the paper carefully and keep it always, for it was a map of her destiny which he had cast from the stars, and that they had told him that it was she who would one day wear the English crown. 'But my brother—but the prince of Wales?'—asked Elizabeth, who had heard much talk of the baby being heir to the throne. [Illustration: THE KING SHOWS ELIZABETH HER MAP OF DESTINY] 'I know not,' he answered sadly; 'but so it is written. Now go back to the queen, and mind, say nought of this, or it will grieve her sorely.' So Elizabeth returned slowly to her own rooms, feeling half afraid and half important with the burden of the secret entrusted to her. She put the paper away in a little box, whose bottom would lift out, given her by her father on her fourth birthday—quite a long time ago! Here she kept all her treasures: a saint's figure, which was a most holy relic, though she could not have told you much about the saint; a lock of hair of her spaniel, which had died at Shene more than a year ago, and the first cap worn by her little brother in the sanctuary, which she had begged from lady Scrope as a remembrance. Then she climbed on to the settle by the fire to place the box on the high mantelshelf, and went to see what her sister was doing. In five minutes she had quite forgotten all that had happened in the absorbing adventures of Beauty and the Beast. ---------------------