fancy caught. He had not talked with a woman for three days and here now at hand was a pink and white slip of a girl with dancing eyes and alluring wit; small wonder he expanded his chest, posed a hand on his hip and smiled down conqueringly into that piquant little face.

"Beshrew me, but she is no judge of worth an she does not," he vowed. "Had I the felicity of thy society, fair Mistress Boleyn, I would lament a parting!"

"Troth, but I have heard the gentlemen leave the lamenting to the ladies!"

The king chuckled. "You should not believe all you hear, lady."

"So I am reminding myself, your Highness."

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"Nay, but a prince's word is never to be questioned." I must needs take your princely word therefore." "You are as pat as amen," he laughed, and lingered on some minutes more in aimless, light-hearted banter, leaving at last in the pleasant consciousness of having given a pretty maid an immense deal to dream about.

But Anne's dreams would have surprised him as she stood among her roses, watching the last rider in Henry's train gain the sky line on Hever Hill and then vanish from sight, she was abusing herself most villainously for not having appealed to the king instead of the queen. Henry had seemed so pliable, so easy-natured to women, that she felt she might have touched his heart and moved him even against the cardinal. She smiled at the daring of the thought, then drew a keen breath of regret.

Too late, now. The cardinal had taken his stand, the earl had interfered, Percy had been carried away to his distant home. While an impending action might have been averted, a completed one could never be undone by any means in her power. Anne took her roses and

went back into the house, but for all her regrets for the might-have-been she felt very agreeably diverted and reënforced in her own esteem by the flattering episode.

The king rode on to Westminster, his head still running on the nymph of the morning because he had seen no more attractive nymph since to displace her. With a smile he mentioned her to Wolsey, who rode at his side.

"I have been conversing this morning with a young lady," said he, "who had the wit of an angel - and was worthy of a crown."

Wolsey's heavy lid veiled the amusement within. There were so many young ladies at Henry's court whose eloquent admiration and appreciative eyes had led Henry to the same bestowal of praise!

"It is sufficient," he remarked dryly, "if your Majesty finds her worthy of your love."

Somewhat dubiously Henry recalled the vision of a clear-eyed girl under her bower of roses. Enough of the young and innocent pride of that face remained in his memory to cause the remark, freighted with an involuntary accent of regret, "I fear she would never condescend that way."

Wolsey permitted his smile to expand. It had always been Henry's way, he noticed, to magnify the inaccessible virtue of the young lady to whom his momentary addresses were paid, thus emphasizing the glory of the conquest. His slant gaze was fixed knowingly ahead, on the waving ears of his mule. "Great princes, if they choose to play the lover, have that in their power which would mollify a heart of steel," he observed oracularly. The particular great prince nodded agreement to this dictum which his own experience had confirmed. He was so palpably occupied with the consideration, that Wolsey, who never permitted the most trivial factor in

the game to escape him, inquired, "And who was this witty maid, your Majesty?

"Rochford's daughter, Anne Boleyn."

"Anne Boleyn she that turned young Percy's head?" Wolsey recollected. "Um- it seems he had a pretty taste since your Majesty commends it. She also hath a pretty temper according to your most gracious wife."

His Majesty grinned.

"We must have her back," thought Wolsey as they rode on, “if she can but entertain him a fortnight. Her father would rejoice . . . and his advancement is no menace to me. I will speak to the queen."

When Wolsey spoke it was to some purpose. The next week saw Anne Boleyn again at court.

CHAPTER IV

A DANCE WITH A KING

'ORK PLACE, or York House, the London residence of the Archbishops of York, where Wolsey maintained his almost royal-many said more than royal - pomp, was an imposing mass of buildings lying to the south of Westminster palace; one side touched on the Thames, the others, encircled by lovely gardens, were surrounded by a high wall. Wolsey had practically re-created the place since it had come into his possession, lavishly rebuilding and enlarging on every hand till he had reared a palace rivaling any of the king's, whose spacious splendor lent itself nobly to the gorgeousness of his entertainment.

On this night of September, 1526, he had planned an especially gay revel for his sovereign's diversion. The great audience chamber, where the feast was laid, approached by an impressive succession of eight rooms, was a large gallery-encircled hall, hung with finest tapestries of the Flemish looms. They were changed every week, these tapestries, so numerous was the cardinal's supply, and for this occasion he had chosen a brilliant set representing subjects from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Between each arras division massy silver sconces bore up hundreds of springing tapers, and hundreds more of them swung on gilt chandeliers from the wide beams and sparkled in broadly branching candlesticks over the gold and silver vessels on the banquet table. Giant yeomen

were standing with flaming torches about a huge cupboard of eight stages, to throw a frank increase of luster on the burnished, jewel-studded plate it held. Not an inch of the vast, treasure-filled hall was unillumined, and thronged with a vividly attired company, the effect was a most dazzling radiance of light and color—a kaleidoscope of brilliance dominated by the cardinal's scarlet, multiplied as that was in his flocks of velvet-coated gentlemen ushers and satin liveried underlings.

The cardinal himself did not sit down at this banquet nor attempt to maintain his wonted ceremony. It was laid magically aside in the presence of his royal guest and Wolsey turned his talents to playing the host, strolling from one table to another, all graded with the most exquisite care, and accosting everyone with that delightful blend of courtesy and intimacy he knew so well how to assume. Only an occasional turn of his eye, enforcing order on the craning throngs permitted in the gallery to observe how the great world of fashion took its pleasures, recalled the stern Judge of Chancery.

The same lavishness and display that met the eye were being repeated in each course of the banquet. Beef and lamb and pork and venison followed on each other's heels, accompanied by rich pastries, jellies, and sweetmeats of French and Spanish confection and those especially invented symbolic dishes, the fad of the hour, wrought into some artificial and allusive shape.

Red, quivering hearts of jelly languished in white bosoms of cream; poor, silenced thrushes, with a spit through their tiny hearts and a dusting of sugar on their crisply roasted backs, were the flocks of love birds that nestled around a very mealy image of Venus. And where shape or substance failed to permit any analogy, some motto or riddle was attached — generally of a kind