Eleanor's jealousy at first found vent in anger; then an apparent coldness seemed to have settled between them, an hollow armistice, which at length gave way, and left in her bosom no feelings but jealousy and revenge.

Eleanor's ancestors were a wayward race, and seemed to struggle which should be the greatest saint or sinner. Her grandfather was a celebrated troubadour, one of the most licentious, and his are considered the oldest lays which are extant. He offered to pledge the duchy of Aquitaine to William Rufus; he built an abbey for strumpets and profligates, appointed over them a suitable prioress, and mingling amongst them, ate, drank, and sang his own obscene lays, and had even the portrait of one of his profligate women painted upon his shield, trusting to the devil and his own evil deeds in the field of battle. He seems to have had no limits to his licentiousness; for, after having yielded to the exhortations of St. Bernard, to undertake an expiatory crusade, (which was unsuccessful,) he again took to his depraved course of life,

and even turned the miseries of his calamitous journey into merry metre, sung, and made himself jovial over his sorrows. Eleanor's father

seemed also to have caught the romantic spirit of the profligate troubadour, which he carried to the reverse purpose. Seized with a sudden fit of penitence, he made the domains of Poictou and Aquitaine, together with his daughter Eleanor, over to the king of France, relinquished all his splendour and greatness, and went on pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella. During his journey he pretended to have died, and was actually buried, and the fact of his death was believed and acted upon, and Eleanor established her claim to his possessions. And while it was believed that he was dead, he went secretly to Rome, where he confided his projected penance to the Pope, travelled in disguise to Jerusalem, returned and died in a retired hermitage on a desert mountain, in Tuscany, none but his religious friends knowing for a long time his secret. Such was the stock from which Queen Eleanor sprung, to

whom we will now return after this out-of-place digression.

Eleanor summoned an attendant, and bade him instantly send into the room Oliphant of Ugglethred. "I will fathom this mystery," muttered the angry queen to herself, when she was again alone in the apartment: "I, who was besieged by the Earl of Blois, and Geoffrey of Anjou, for my hand, men who cared more for my person than my possessions, to be thus slighted, after having brought a dower that rivals the proudest in Europe, and that too by the king of a petty island like England ! He loves me not," continued she, after a painful pause; "fool that I was to wed with one so many years younger than myself,- one who would have joined his fate with the sister of Satan, if she had but brought him such fair provinces as Poictou and Aquitaine! And this is the price at which I have purchased my revenge on the old dotard of France," added she with a sigh. "But ere I lose my power over these goodly realms, because another carrieth a fairer cheek

than mine own, I will- -but this may but be fancied jealousy. Fool that I am to care more for Henry of England, than Louis of France!" and just as she was about to uplift her hand to her brow, her eye fell on Oliphant of Ugglethred, and a change passed instantly over her fine features.

With the stealthy pace of a cat did Ugglethred enter the apartment; and when he saw the confusion which his sudden presence had caused to Eleanor, a smile of grim delight passed over his

countenance.

"Methinks thou mightest give us a slight notice before entering our presence," said the Queen, glancing angrily at the attendant; "I marvel where thou didst pick up that stealthy step of thine?"

"And I marvel also at your highness's memory," said the ruffian, with matchless effrontery, "that could thus soon forget my learning it in your own service, when I kept watch in the camp of the Crusaders, while

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"Peace, villain!" exclaimed the angry Queen,

or, by the soul of my father, I will plunge my dagger into thine heart's blood."

"An' that be all the reward I am worthy of for past services," replied Ugglethred retiring, "I will e'en look out for new employment."

"Remember, knave, that thou canst not retire beyond the reach of my vengeance," said Eleanor, subduing her passion with difficulty as she spoke.

"It will but be making a confessor of the assassin," replied Ugglethred, "and thy vengeance will soon find enough to do."

"Thou art a villain," muttered the Queen in a low voice, yet so high that it reached the ear of Oliphant, as the savage glance which shot from under his shaggy brows fully testified.

Oliphant," said Eleanor in an altered tone of voice which called forth all her powers of dissimulation to give a softness to the sound, "thou hast not, I trust, come to quarrel with me at a time like this, when I have so much need of thy kind service."