'Ah, you will get better now!' he cried joyfully, noting the happiness in her eyes; but she said nothing, only kissed his hand, and drew it towards the baby. And she was right: from that moment she grew worse, and a few days later she was dead, leaving this one child behind her. Hardly sixteen! yet how well and nobly she had filled the place and done the duties that had been given her! --------------------- The news of Blanche's death was a terrible grief to her father in England, and to her sister Philippa, who had been for nearly three years queen of Denmark. It was not that they ever saw her—perhaps they never would—but they felt she was _there_, thinking about them and caring for them; and what joyful days those were when a special courier or travelling knight brought them letters from her! Yet as she read with streaming eyes what her brother-in-law, 'the lord Lewis,' had written, Philippa's heart ached for herself, as well as for the dead girl. Blanche's life at least had been happy from first to last, but to Philippa some bad days had already come, and others were casting shadows before them. Except for parting from Blanche, Philippa had also had a happy childhood, and she being very lively and full of plans, nobody ever felt dull in her presence. No sooner had Blanche set out on her journey to Cologne than Henry was obliged to go into Wales, and he left Philippa and her second brother, John, duke of Bedford, together with the children of the late earl of March, under the care of Sir Hugh Waterton at Berkhamstead Castle. It was summer, and the pretty Hertfordshire commons were golden with gorse and sweet with bushes of wild roses and honeysuckle, and, strictly guarded though they were, Philippa and the rest had many a merry gallop over the grass, for her love of horses had become a passion with her. Sometimes, when they were tired of playing, she and John used to walk soberly up and down the alleys in the castle garden, talking of their new stepmother—for even before the departure of Blanche Henry had been married 'by proxy' to the widowed duchess of Bretagne, Jane of Navarre. 'She _sounded_ kind in the letter she wrote,' said Philippa in a doubtful tone, 'and if Blanche had been here I should not have been afraid. But suppose she should be like the stepmothers in the nursery tales, and send me down into the kitchen to do scullion's work!'