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So Math dropped this shining white feather into the fire, on which she was warming over a pot of soup for Manuel's dinner, and they watched this feather burn. Manuel says, sighing, "Even so my days consume, and my youth goes out of me, in a land wherein Suskind whispers of uncomfortable things, and wherein there are no maids so clever and dear as Niafer, nor so lovely as Alianora."
But what absurdity might not be expected from people who had no Bibles, and of whom not more than one in a thousand could have read it if he had had one? Are we half thankful enough for our own privileges? "Well!" continued Avice, "after this, the Lady Alianora came down to Windsor with the Lady Queen, and our little Lady and she took to one another wonderfully.
"It is easy enough to guess, though," Dame Niafer said darkly, although, in point of fact, she too was wondering why Alianora should have sent for Manuel; "and I can quite understand how in your sandals you prefer not to have people know about such doings, and laughing at you everywhere, again." Dom Manuel did not reply; but he sighed.
The pen was lifted to sign the fatal document, when the proceedings were stopped by an unexpected little wail from something in Maude's arms. Custance dashed down the quill, and springing up, took her little Alianora to her bosom. "Sign away thy birthright, my star, my dove! Wretched mother that I am, to dream thereof! How could I ever meet thine innocent eyes again? I will not sign it!"
She had never consulted any will but her own before, for she had not cared about pleasing Le Despenser. But she wanted to please Kent, and she did not know what name would gratify him. At length she decided on Alianora, a name borne by two of his sisters, of whom the eldest, the Countess of March, she believed to be his favourite sister.
And the Lady Alianora once said to me, stroking our little Lady's hair `I hope, Avice, thou givest her plenty of love. She can understand that, if she cannot anything else. Ay, and so she could! She fretted sadly over the Lady Alianora when she went away from Windsor. I think she and the little kid were more than ever together after that.
She was robed in cloth of silver; her hair flowed from beneath a jewelled golden fillet; her neck was encircled by rubies, and a ruby and pearl girdle clasped her waist. She felt all the time as though she were dreaming, especially when the Lady Alianora herself superintended her arraying, and even condescended to remark that "the Lady Philippa did not look so very unseemly after all."
The last mention of his brother Roger as living occurs on the Rolls, August 26th, 1404; but we are told that he was one of the boys stolen by Constance in February, 1405. After that nothing is heard of him but that he died young; probably before his brother's release, as his age would then have been at least fifteen. His sister Alianora married Edward Courtenay, and died issueless.
Manuel called black eagles to him, in the manner the Princess Alianora had taught, and he sent them into all parts of the world for every sort of white earth.
"Count Manuel," says Alianora, with that lovely tranquil smile of hers, "you perceive that my father is insistent, and it is my duty to be guided by him. I do not deny that, upon my father's advice, I am asking you to let perish a strong magic which many persons would value above a woman's pleading.
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