Her displeasure was yet more increased by observing the ill-concealed smile which the taunt had called forth.
"Nay, my lord," she said, after a short pause, "we value the peace of our roiaulme too much for so high an ambition.

Were we to make a brother even the prince of the closheys, we should disappoint the hopes of a Nevile." The earl disdained pursuing the war of words, and answering coldly, "The Neviles are more famous for making ingrates than asking favours.

I leave your Highness to the closheys"-- turned away, and strode towards the king, who, at the opposite end of the garden, was reclining on a bench beside a lady, in whose ear, to judge by her downcast and blushing cheek, he was breathing no unwelcome whispers.
"Mort-Dieu!" muttered the earl, who was singularly exempt, himself, from the amorous follies of the day, and eyed them with so much contempt that it often obscured his natural downright penetration into character, and never more than when it led him afterwards to underrate the talents of Edward IV.,--"Mort-Dieu! if, an hour before the battle of Towton, some wizard had shown me in his glass this glimpse of the gardens of the Tower, that giglet for a queen, and that squire of dames for a king, I had not slain my black destrier (poor Malech!), that I might conquer or die for Edward Earl of March." "But see!" said the lady, looking up from the enamoured and conquering eyes of the king, "art thou not ashamed, my lord ?--the grim earl comes to chide thee for thy faithlessness to thy queen, whom he loves so well." "Pasque-Dieu! as my cousin Louis of France says or swears," answered the king, with an evident petulance in his altered voice, "I would that Warwick could be only worn with one's armour! I would as lief try to kiss through my vizor as hear him talk of glory and Towton, and King John and poor Edward II., because I am not always in mail.

Go! leave us, sweet bonnibel! we must brave the bear alone!" The lady inclined her head, drew her hood round her face, and striking into the contrary path from that in which Warwick was slowly striding, gained the group round the queen, whose apparent freedom from jealousy, the consequence of cold affections and prudent calculation, made one principal cause of the empire she held over the powerful mind, but the indolent temper, of the gay and facile Edward.
The king rose as Warwick now approached him; and the appearance of these two eminent persons was in singular contrast.

Warwick, though richly and even gorgeously attired,--nay, with all the care which in that age was considered the imperative duty a man of station and birth owed to himself,--held in lofty disdain whatever vagary of custom tended to cripple the movements or womanize the man.