us!” the old woman cried; if the Queen had come next she could not have been more surprised. The Duchess, it need not be said, was in the secret of all those arrangements which were to make Lady Jane into Reginald Winton’s wife. She had a cold that day, partly real, partly no doubt emotional, but enough to make her keep her room in the morning, leaving her guests to the care of her sister, who was at Billings on a visit. She got up, as may be supposed, with a great deal of agitation from her broken rest, thinking of her Jane, how she would be preparing for her marriage, with nobody but Lady Germaine to comfort and support her. Lady Germaine was very kind: she had taken charge of the whole business; she and her husband had gone to town on purpose to facilitate everything; but still it was dreadful to the Duchess to think that her child should have no one but Lady Germaine to lean upon at such a moment of her life. In her own room, in the stillness of the morning, the thoughts of the mother were bent upon this subject, which she went over and over, thinking of everything. She figured to herself how her child would wake, and realise what a fateful morning it was, and wish for her mother. How she would say her prayers with all the fervour of such a crisis, and linger upon the contemplation of the past, and the sweet but awful thought of the future. Though her husband and his reign were so near, Jane would think of her home, of the parents who loved her, and shed some tears to think that the most momentous act of her life was taking place away from them, in opposition to one of them. The Duchess, who was very much overcome, at once by what she knew and what she did not know, by imagination and by fact, shed more tears herself at this point, and she had to dry them hastily to look up with an unconcerned face when her maid came into the room bringing a piece of news which in a moment startled her into activity and alarm. The Duke had gone suddenly off to town by the early train. After he had read his letters he had seemed agitated, but said nothing to Bowles (who was his Grace’s valet) except that business called him to town. And he had been gone an hour when the news was brought to his wife. The reader may suppose how short a time elapsed before the anxious mother followed him. She went out quietly in a close carriage, nobody knowing, and got the next train, arriving in London two hours later than that by which her husband had travelled. He was sitting down with a little shrug of his shoulders, but not without appetite, to Mrs Brown’s chops, when she drove up to the door, and suddenly came in upon him, pale and full of anguish. Her eye ran round the room questioning before she said a word:--then she loosened her cloak and sat down upon the nearest seat with a sigh of relief.