That Roger should exercise in the future considerable influence over the fortunes of Lawrence, was extremely probable; since they would some day stand to each other in the relations of master and vassal, and the former possessed absolute power over the latter. But the idea that Lawrence could in any sense sway the fortunes of Roger would have been laughed to scorn by the household at the Castle. Yet this was to be. In a small, but very prettily furnished boudoir in one of the Castle turrets, sat the Countess Dowager of March. She was considered an elderly woman, though we should think her only middle-aged; for in the days of our shorter-lived forefathers, who looked upon fifty as old age, and sixty as advanced senility, a woman of forty was some way down the hill. From a father whose character stood high both as warrior and statesman, and a mother whose remarkable wisdom and good sense were a proverb among her contemporaries, Philippa Montacute had inherited a character of unusual power, moral and mental. Her energy was tempered by her prudence, while warm affections and shrewd common sense held sway together over her actions. The character was not transmitted, except in the affections, to that handsome, eloquent, amiable young man of one-and-twenty, who was the only one left living of her four children: but it was to be reproduced in every point save one, in the baby grandson for whose birth the chapel bells were ringing melodiously, and in whose honour all the thralls were to have a holiday the next day. Alas, that the omitted item was the one which should have been a girdle to all the rest! Warm-hearted, energetic to impulsiveness, with plenty of good sense and fine understanding, the gifts bestowed on little Roger did not include prudence. The Countess sat alone in her bower in the September twilight, and took "blind man’s holiday," her imagination and memory scanning both the future and the past. It was not quite dark when the door of the bower opened, and a woman of some thirty years came forward, dropping a courtesy as she approached her mistress. "Come in, Wenteline," said the Countess; for thus the medieval English pronounced the old British name, Guenllian. "Is David yet back from his errand?" "An’t please your Ladyship, he came but now, and he brings tidings, agreeably to your Ladyship’s pleasure, that among the thralls be two babes to-day born. Maud, the wife of Nicholas in the huts, hath a man-child; and your Ladyship’s god-daughter, Philippa, wife of Blumond the fishmonger, a maid-child." "Good," answered the Countess, feeling for the gold and ivory tablet which hung by a silver chain from her girdle, that she might therein enter the information for which she had sent. "Then, as born on the birthday of the heir, they shall be allowed some privileges. What names are the babes christened by?"