"Now, out upon you for a most silly lady!" retorted Lady Frances. "It may be my fate, despite the affection I bear _poor_ Rich (I like the linking of these words), to wed some other man--one who will please my father and benefit the state. Is not the misery of being chained to a thing you loathe and detest sufficient cause for trouble, without emulating bats and owls! No, no; if I must be ironed, I will cover my fetters with flowers--they shall be perfumed, and tricked, and trimmed. I shall see you gay at court, dear Constance. Besides, if you are to be married, you must not twine willow with your bridal roses--that will never do." There was no smile upon Constantia's lips at her friend's kind and continued efforts to remove the weight that pressed upon her heart. "This is the last night that I can dare trust myself to speak of Walter. Frances," she said, after a long pause, "I have no fears for his personal safety, because I know with whom he left this house: but, one thing I would say; and if, my dearest, kindest friend, I have not prated to you of my sorrows--joys, alas! I have not to communicate--it is because I must not. With all the childish feeling of a girl you have a woman's heart, true and susceptible, as ever beat in woman's bosom. I know you have thought me cold and reserved; an iceberg, where nothing else was ice:--true, I am chilled by circumstances, not by nature. I am sure you can remember when my step was as light, and my voice as happy, though not as mirthful, as your own: but the lightness and the mirthfulness have passed:--only, Frances, when the world dyes my name in its own evil colour, I pray you say----" She paused as if in great perplexity. "Say what? Surely all the world can say is, that you did what thousands of devoted girls have done before you--married to fulfil a contract," observed Lady Frances, who well knew that some deadly poison rankled in her heart, and almost overturned her reason. "True, true," repeated Constance--"I had forgotten; for I am, as you may see, bewildered by my misery. But one thing, dear Frances, you can surely do:--take this poor trinket--it perplexed you once--and if ever you should meet the Cavalier who parted lately in such company, give it him back. That simple girl, poor Barbara, found it to-day within the Fairy Ring, and brought it me:--it is the only memento I had of him," she continued, placing it in Lady Frances' hand--"the only one--there, put it away. And now, dear Frances, since you will companion me through this last night of liberty, go, fetch your lute, and sing me all the songs we learned together; or talk in your own sweet way of those we knew, esteemed, or jested at." "When I do sing, or when I talk, you do not listen," replied the youngest of Cromwell's daughters, taking down her lute and striking a few wild chords: "your ears are open but their sense is shut."