"Yes, truly, David!--for a Queen! Oh, it's not a Queen who is my direct employer--no Queen ever knows anything about me! It's a great firm in London that sends this to me to mend for a Queen--they trust me with it, because they know me.

I've had lace worth thousands of pounds in my hands,--this piece is valued at eight hundred, apart from its history--it belonged to Marie Louise, second wife of Napoleon the First.

It's a lovely bit!--but there are some cruel holes in it.

Ah, dear me!" And, sitting down near the door, she bent her head closely over the costly fabric--"Queens don't think of the eyes that have gone out in blindness doing this beautiful work!--or the hands that have tired and the hearts that have broken over it! They would never run pins into it if they did!" He watched her sitting as she now was in the sunlight that flooded the doorway, and tried to overcome the emotional weakness that moved him to stretch out his arms to her as though she were his daughter, to call her to his side, and lay his hands on her head in blessing, and to beg her to let him stay with her now and always until the end of his days,--an end which he instinctively felt could not be very long in coming.

But he realised enough of her character to know that were he to give himself away, and declare his real identity and position in the world of men, she would probably not allow him to remain in her cottage for another twenty-four hours.