The Tangled Skein. Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

was stamping her little foot, eager, impatient, excited. The Duchess felt somewhat bewildered before this hurricane of girlish wrath.

      "Because Her Majesty ordered it thus, child," she said in a more conciliatory spirit; "she hath not always need of all her maids-of-honour round her."

      "Nay! that's not the reason," rejoined Barbara, "and Your Grace is too clever to believe it."

      "You are a silly child and——"

      "Then we are all silly, for 'tis patent to us all. 'Tis Ursula who is being kept wilfully away from the Court, or rather from seeing His Grace of Wessex, and in order not to make these machinations too obvious, some of us are also relegated in the background in her company."

      "And 'tis small wonder that Ursula should wish to catch sight of the man whom her father vowed she should wed or else enter into a convent," concluded Alicia defiantly.

      Her Grace was at her wits' ends. Too clever not to have noticed the intrigue to which the girls now made reference, she would sooner have died than owned that her Queen was acting wrongfully or even pettily.

      However, for the moment she was spared the further discussion of this unpleasant topic, for a long, merry, girlish laugh was suddenly heard echoing through the great chambers beyond.

      "Hush!" said the Duchess with reassumed severity, "'tis that misguided child herself. Now remember, ladies, not a word of all this. I must learn the truth on this scandal, and will set a watch to-night. But not a word to her."

      The next moment the subject of all this animated conversation threw open the heavy oak door of the room. She came running in, with her fair hair flying in a deliriously mad tangle round her shoulders, her eyes dancing with glee, whilst above her head she was, with one small hand, flourishing a small piece of paper, the obvious cause of this apparently uncontrollable fit of girlish merriment.