“At Camylott, at Marlowell, at Roxholm, at Paulyn, and at Mertoun,” she had said when she was married, “we must have an apartment which is Anne’s.  She is my saint and I must keep a niche for her in every house and set her in it to be worshipped.”

And so it was, to whichsoever of their homes they went, Mistress Anne went with them and found always her own nest warm to receive her.

“It makes me feel audacious, sister,” she used to say at first, “to go from one grand house to the other and be led to Mistress Anne’s apartments, in each, and they always prepared and waiting as if ’twere I who were a Duchess.”

“You are Anne!  You are Anne!” said her Grace, and kissed her fondly.

Sometimes she was like a gay and laughing girl, and set all the place alight with her witcheries; she invented entertainments for their guests, games and revels for the villagers, and was the spirit of all.  In one of their retrospective hours, Osmonde had told her of the thoughts he had dreamed on, as they had ridden homeward from the encampment of the gipsies—­of his fancies of the comrade she would make for a man who lived a roving life.  She had both laughed and wept over the story, clinging to his breast as she had told her own, and of her fear of his mere glance at her in those dark days, and that she had not dared to sit alone but kept near her lord’s side lest she should ponder and remember what ’twas honest she should forget.

But afterwards she planned, for their fanciful pleasure, rambling long jaunts when they rode or walked unattended, and romanced like children, eating their simple food under broad greenwood trees or on the wide moors with a whole world of heather, as it seemed, rolled out before them.

On such a journey, setting out from London one bright morning, they rode through Essex and stopped by chance at a little village inn.  ’Twas the village of Wickben, and on the signboard which hung swinging on a post before the small thatched house of entertainment was painted a brown cow.

None knew ’twas a Duke and his Duchess who dismounted and entered the place.  They had made sure that by their attire none could suspect them of being more than ordinary travellers, modest enough to patronise a humble place.

“But Lord, what a fine pair!” said the old fellow who was the landlord.  “Adam and Eve may have been such when God first made man and woman, and had stuff in plenty to build them.”

He was an aged man and talkative, and being eager for a chance to wag his tongue and hear travellers’ adventures, attended them closely.  He gave them their simple repast himself in small room, and as he moved to and fro fell to gossiping, emboldened by their friendly gayety of speech and by her Grace’s smiling eyes.

“Your ladyship,” he began at first, in somewhat awkward, involuntary homage.

“Nay, gaffer, I am no ladyship,” she answered, with Clo Wildairs’s unceremonious air.  “I am but a gipsy woman in good luck for a day, and my man is a gipsy, too, though his skin is fairer than mine.  We are going to join our camp near Camylott village.  These horses are not ours but borrowed—­honestly.  Is’t not so, John Merton?” And she so laughed at his Grace with her big, saucy eyes, that he wished he had been indeed a gipsy man and could have kissed her openly.