Two days had elapsed since the prince's last visit to Margaret Drummond, and her father's discovery of a union which, ambitious as he was, had been altogether above his dearest hopes, and beyond his most daring schemes: and true to his plan of having it regularly announced to the nation by the voice of a new chancellor, when the Parliament assembled in the capital, he did not breathe a syllable of the important secret even to his most faithful friends or followers, or to his daughters, Euphemia and Sybilla, who were sorely puzzled to find that the two young Lords Home and Hailes were likely to become constant visitors at their house; that in two days each of these nobles had paid them four visits, and that beautiful hawks, with scarlet hoods and silver bells, had been presented to them; that elaborate little cases, containing gloves of Blois trimmed with miniver and perfumed to excess, Turkish fans edged with swansdown, and Cordovan slippers beautifully embroidered with gold and seed-pearls, had come to them, they knew not from whence; and that the sudden admiration and regard expressed by their father for these two border lords was unbounded, while he seemed to be ever in the best of humours with himself and with every one else; and guessing wide of the truth, because such thoughts were farthest from their own hearts, the timid girls believed and dreaded that this sudden and unwonted friendship was but the sure forerunner of some desperate raid against the courtiers of the king. During these two days Rothesay, with Lord Lindesay, Sir Patrick Gray of Kyneff, Sir William Stirling of Keir, and others, had been hunting on Montrose's estates near the Braes of Angus; consequently, when he returned, on the morning of the third day, he knew nothing of the storm then gathering at court, where Lord Drummond had imparted to the king the secret he had discovered. Laying aside his hunting costume of green cloth, Rothesay was equipped by his pages in his favourite gala dress, which was blue velvet, slashed with cloth-of-gold, and tied by aiguilettes and three hundred little trefoils of gold; for he had now resolved to pay openly a visit to Lord Drummond's family. The last point of his elaborate costume had just been trussed, when John Ramsay, Lord of Bothwell, the young captain of the Royal Guard, appeared, and said that the king required his presence in his private cabinet.