The members of the council thereupon bowed gravely and withdrew to their own room for the purpose of making out the list in compliance with Lord Douglas's request. During the whole of this time, in the curtained alcove below, Lady Anna had been conversing with Sir Richard. From the inception of their acquaintance, the young knight had accorded to her a sincere admiration, and in a very short space she had won his confidence to the extent that he was now narrating to her the experiences of his journey. When he came to the incident of the cutting of saffron velvet, which he had withheld when telling his story to Lord Douglas, Lady Anna displayed a more than passive interest, expressing an earnest wish to see and examine the bit of cloth. When he obediently gave it to her, she took it within her shapely fingers, crumpling it into many wrinkles, arching her fine brows, and making a pretense of feeling jealousy. In fact, whenever opportunity offered, she set his cup to brimming with sweetest flattery. Like all men of whom she chose to make instruments in the furthering of her husband's schemes, Sir Richard became a mere creature of clay in her deft hands. "Lord Douglas told you, Richard," said she, when they were done discussing the subject of his adventures, "that to-day is the day of the Cobbler's Feast. But he was remiss in not adding that it is also my birthday, and that we have arranged that you shall have seat at table between my lord and me, ... the guest of honor. Though the honor shall be ours in claiming you as such, brave knight." Thereupon she arose with a pretty show of reluctance from the cushioned window-seat. "How old would you take me to be?" she concluded with an arch look. Sir Richard, extremely sensible of the intimacy of Lady Anna's question, flushed with embarrassment. He begged to be excused from answering, averring that he had ever been an ill judge of women's ages. When she pressed him for a reply, which she contrived to do without seeming to be over bold, he ventured a surmise that she must be nearly of an age with himself. "Why, what a flatterer you are to be sure, Richard," she said, laughing gaily. "Beshrew me for a witch, an you are anything more than a mere boy! I am thirty-three, sir knight. Thirty-three this day. But come," she added, taking his hand, pressing it gently and casting sidelong glances out of a pair of wonderfully expressive brown eyes; "it is not my wish to keep you altogether to myself. Permit me to acquaint you with the company in the hall," Lady Anna pursued, as she led Sir Richard into the throng of courtiers and maidens. "Till we meet beside the wassail board, make you merry," she said then. "And forget not to address a word or two in my direction. I shall esteem each one of them a ... jewel, Richard."