Whatever truth lurked in the report, neither Mary nor her penniless young husband, William Carey, had reaped much of a harvest; the simple beauty's light had flickered mildly, then waned to nothingness. It had been some time now since the Careys had been seen at court; they were enjoying a full measure of connubial obscurity. Her years at court had not left Anne much surprise in which to shrink from this report, but she had been careful never to touch on it before.

Anne's perversity was harder upon her than upon the household, which seemed to miss her not at all, and the sounds of feasting and revelry that roared out from the great hall woke an excited unrest in her. Lying awake in the dark, her chin propped in her hand, listening to those tantalizing echoes of the gayety that other people were getting out of life, she decided that it was time wasted to be a woman. The Lord had clearly created the earth and the fullness thereof for man.

Moreover she reflected that her instinct to avoid the cardinal and refuse her father had cut her off from a glimpse of the young men she knew, friends of her brother, Norris or Brereton, who were undoubtedly in the king's train, and who could give her the gossip of the court — perhaps news of Henry Percy. Wyatt, she had learned, was not there.

She was awake early the next morning and, with the notion of encountering some of her acquaintances, she dressed in haste and made her way downstairs. The great hall stood empty, with only yawning serving men about. The king, she learned, was breakfasting in his chamber.

Wandering to the open door Anne peeped out at a world of blue sky and sunshine. It was a day of August's richest benignity, of full-blown sweets fresh

ened by the morning dew. The girl's spirits lifted in swift response to its joyousness and unconscious of a pair of keen eyes watching from the musician's gallery above she sped out over the drawbridge and into the park.

The place was so densely wooded that in twenty paces all glimpse of the castle was lost and only thin spirals of smoke ascending from its many chimneys into the blue above told her where it was. She was in the midst of immense beech trees, great, gnarled veterans of many season's storms, whose tangled boughs interwove a canopy of green above her. Somewhere, high overhead out of sight, a lark was singing. Her heart thrilled to the exquisite song.

A little farther on a glade opened before her, half encircled by a shallow brook bubbling between its green banks that were embroidered with the delicate blue of the crane's-bill. Anne took the brook at a leap that shook her hair into a thousand dancing tendrils and reached the object of her excursion, an old stump wreathed everywhere with a glory of scarlet ramblers. Standing on tiptoe for Anne had ever a mind for things out of reach she began to pull the dewy roses, making as pretty picture at the task, as man could find to look upon a maid among her roses.

A snapped bough made her turn with a start to find that a man was indeed looking at it. He was a big, finely built man, in a rich suit that bore the marks of soil and travel. His face was ruddy; his yellow beard and somewhat scant hair shone in the sun. He made a flourish with the plumed hat he carried in one hand and smiled at her confusion.

"Flora in her bower," said he, in a resonant masterful voice.

Anne bowed low to her king. "Your Majesty!" was all she could find to say.

This maiden fright was in itself a flattery. Henry smiled and took the brook at a bound, landing beside her with a thud of solid weight.

"Tribute," he laughed and took a rose from her armful. "Mars taking tribute from Flora," she ventured and saw that the flight of fancy pleased.

"What other name does Flora wear among mere mortals?"

Anne opened wide her eyes in naïve surprise. She had yet to learn something of the transient place that subjects claim in a monarch's recollection. "I haven't courtesied to him more than fifty times!" she reflected, and then consoled herself with the succeeding reflection that Henry swallowed Catherine's maids of honor in the same casual, neglectful way that he swallowed the fact of Catherine's existence.

"I am Anne Boleyn," she said.

So? . . . I recollect thee, now. The morning sun and this nymph-like fashion of the hair had so dazzled mine eyes that I did not well perceive thee, mistress." He paused a moment while his memory evidently summed up all it knew of Anne's, career and then added, “We do miss thee at court."

Anne dimpled mischievously. The opening was too much for her discretion.

"I am sure that her Gracious Majesty is disconsolate!" she replied demurely.

The king stared. Not a ghost of a smile on that small mouth; its curves were buttoned in with the sedatest of expressions but her eyes- he felt he had never glimpsed anything so blithely, drolly audacious, as Anne's eyes. His own twinkled back into them, his