The music died away among the old oaks in the park. Before its final notes were lost on the air, however, hasty steps and a chatter of women’s voices came from the house. The door leading to the terrace was thrown quickly open, and Nell appeared. Her eyes had the bewildered look of one who has been suddenly awakened from a sleep gilded with a delightful dream.

She had, indeed, been dreaming–dreaming of the King and of his coming. As she lay upon her couch, where she had thrown herself after the evening meal, she had seemed to hear his serenade.

Then the music ceased and she started up and rubbed her eyes. It was only to see the moonlight falling through the latticed windows on to the floor of her dainty chamber. She was alone and she bethought herself sadly that dreams go by contraries.

Once again, however, the hunters’ song had arisen on her startled ear–and had died away in sweet cadences in the distance. It was not a dream!

As she rushed out upon the terrace, she called Moll reprovingly; and, in an instant, Moll was at her side. The faithful girl had already seen the hunters and had started a search for Nell; but the revellers had gone before she could find her.

“What is it, dear Nell?” asked her companion, well out of breath.

“Why did you not call me, cruel girl?” answered Nell, impatiently. “To miss seeing so many handsome cavaliers! Where is my kerchief?”

Nell leaned over the balustrade and waved wildly to the departing hunters. A pretty picture she was too, in her white flowing gown, silvered by the moonlight.

“See, see,” she exclaimed to Moll, with wild enthusiasm, “some one waves back. It may be he, sweet mouse. Heigh-ho! Why don’t you wave, Moll?”Before Moll could answer, a rich bugle-horn rang out across the park.

“The hunters’ horn!” cried Nell, gleefully. “Oh, I wish I were a man–except when one is with me”; and she threw both arms about Moll, for the want of one better to embrace. She was in her varying mood, which was one ’twixt the laughter of the lip and the tear in the eye.

“I have lost my brother!” ejaculated some one; but she heard him not.

This laconic speech came from none other than the King, who in a bantering mood had returned.

“I went one side a tree and pious James t’other; and here I am by Nelly’s terrace once again,” he muttered. “Oh, ho! wench!” His eyes had caught sight of Nell upon the terrace.

He stepped back quickly into the shadow and watched her playfully.

Nell looked longingly out into the night, and sighed heavily. She was at her wit’s end. The evening was waning, and the King, as she thought, had not come.

“Why do you sigh?” asked Moll, consolingly.“I was only looking down the path, dear heart,” replied Nell, sadly.

“He will come,” hopefully suggested Moll, whose little heart sympathized deeply with her benefactress.

“Nay, sweet,” said Nell, and she shook her curls while the moonbeams danced among them, “he is as false as yonder moon–as changeable of face.”

She withdrew her eyes from the path and they fell upon the King. His Majesty’s curiosity had quite over-mastered him, and he had inadvertently stepped well into the light. The novelty of hearing himself derided by such pretty lips was a delicious experience, indeed.

“The King!” she cried, in joyous surprise.

Moll’s diplomatic effort to escape at the sight of his Majesty was not half quick enough for Nell, who forthwith forced her companion into the house, and closed the door sharply behind her, much to the delight of the humour-loving King.

Nell then turned to the balustrade and, somewhat confused, looked down at his Majesty, who now stood below, calmly gazing up at her, an amused expression on his face.

“Pardon, your Majesty,” she explained, falteringly, “I did not see you.”

“You overlooked me merely,” slyly suggested Charles, swinging his stick in the direction of the departed hunters.

“I’faith, I thought it was you waved answer, Sire,” quickly replied Nell, whose confusion was gone and who was now mistress of the situation and of herself.

“No, Nell; I hunt alone for my hart.”

“You hunt the right park, Sire.”

“Yea, a good preserve, truly,” observed the King. “I find my game, as I expected, flirting, waving kerchiefs, making eyes and throwing kisses to the latest passer-by.”

“I was encouraging the soldiers, my liege. That is every woman’s duty to her country.”

“And her countrymen,” said he, smiling. “You are very loyal, Nell. Come down!” It was irritating, indeed, to be kept so at arm’s length.She gazed down at him with impish sweetness–down at the King of England!

“Come up!” she said, leaning over the balustrade.

“Nay; come down if you love me,” pleaded the King.

“Nay; come up if you love me,” said Nell, enticingly.

“Egad! I am too old to climb,” exclaimed the Merry Monarch.

“Egad! I am too young yet for the downward path, your Majesty,” retorted Nell.

The King shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

“You will fall if we give you time,” he said.

“To the King’s level?” she asked, slyly, then answered herself: “Mayhap.”

Thus they stood like knights after the first tilt. Charles looked up at Nell, and Nell looked down at Charles. There was a moment’s silence. Nell broke it.

“I am surprised you happen this way, Sire.”“With such eyes to lure me?” asked the King, and he asked earnestly too.

“Tush,” answered Nell, coyly, “your tongue will lead you to perdition, Sire.”

“No fear!” replied he, dryly. “I knelt in church with brother James but yesterday.”

“In sooth, quite true!” said Nell, approvingly, as she leaned back against the door and raised her eyes innocently toward the moon. “I sat in the next pew, Sire, afraid to move for fear I might awake your Majesty.”

The King chuckled softly to himself. Nell picked one of the flowers that grew upon the balustrade.

“Ah, you come a long-forgotten path to-night,” she said abruptly.

The King was alert in an instant. He felt that he had placed himself in a false light. He loved the witch above despite himself.

“I saw thee twa evenings ago, lass,” he hastily asserted, in good Scotch accents, somewhat impatiently.

“And is not that a long time, Sire,” questioned Nell, “or did Portsmouth make it fly?”

“Portsmouth!” exclaimed Charles. He turned his face away. “Can it be my conscience pricks me?” he thought. “You know more of her than I, sweet Nell,” he then asserted, with open manner.

“Marry, I know her not at all and never saw her,” said Nell. “I shall feel better when I do,” she thought.

“It were well for England’s peace you have not met,” laughed Charles.

“Faith and troth,” said Nell, “I am happy to know our King has lost his heart.”

“Odso! And why?” asked Charles; and he gazed at Nell in his curious uncertain way, as he thought it was never possible to tell quite what she meant or what she next would think or say or do.

“We feared he had not one to lose,” she slyly suggested. “It gives us hope.”

“To have it in another’s hand as you allege?” asked Charles.

“Marry, truly!” answered Nell, decisively. “The Duchess may find it more than she can hold and toss it over.”

“How now, wench!” exclaimed the King, with assumption of wounded dignity. “My heart a ball for women to bat about!”

“Sire, two women often play at rackets even with a king’s heart,” softly suggested Nell.

“Odsfish,” cried the King, with hands and eyes raised in mock supplication. “Heaven help me then.”

Again the hunters’ horn rang clearly on the night.

“The horn! The horn!” said Nell, with forced indifference. “They call you, Sire.”

There was a triumphantly bewitching look in her eyes, however, as she realized the discomfiture of the King. He was annoyed, indeed. His manner plainly betokened his desire to stay and his irritation at the interruption.

“’Tis so!” he said at last, resignedly. “The King is lost.”

The horn sounded clearer. The hunters were returning.

“Again–nearer!” exclaimed Charles, fretfully. His mind reverted to his pious brother; and he laughed as he continued: “Poor brother James and his ostriches!”

He could almost touch Nell’s finger-tips.

“Farewell, sweet,” he said; “I must help them find his Majesty or they will swarm here like bees. Yet I must see my Nell again to-night. You have bewitched me, wench. Sup with me within the hour–at–Ye Blue Boar Inn. Can you find the place?”

There was mischief in Nell’s voice as she leaned upon the balustrade. She dropped a flower; he caught it.

“Sire, I can always find a rendezvous,” she answered.

“You’re the biggest rogue in England,” laughed Charles.

“Of a subject, perhaps, Sire,” replied Nell, pointedly.

“That is treason, sly wench,” rejoined the King; but his voice grew tender as he added: “but treason of the tongue and not the heart. Adieu! Let that seal thy lips, until we meet.”He threw a kiss to the waiting lips upon the balcony.

“Alack-a-day,” sighed Nell, sadly, as she caught the kiss. “Some one may break the seal, my liege; who knows?”

“How now?” questioned Charles, jealously.

Nell hugged herself as she saw his fitful mood; for beneath mock jealousy she thought she saw the germ of true jealousy. She laughed wistfully as she explained: “It were better to come up and seal them tighter, Sire.”

“Minx!” he chuckled, and tossed another kiss.

The horn again echoed through the woods. He started.

“Now we’ll despatch the affairs of England, brother; then we’ll sup with pretty Nelly. Poor brother James! Heaven bless him and his ostriches.”

He turned and strode quickly through the trees and down the path; but, as he went, ever and anon he called: “Ye Blue Boar Inn, within the hour!”

Each time from the balcony in Nell’s sweet voice came back–“Ye Blue Boar Inn, within the hour! I will not fail you, Sire!”

Then she too disappeared. There was again a slamming of doors and much confusion within the house. There were calls and sounds of running feet.

The door below the terrace opened suddenly, and Nell appeared breathless upon the lawn–at her heels the constant Moll. Nell ran some steps down the path, peering vainly through the woods after the departing King. Her bosom rose and fell in agitation.

“Oh, Moll, Moll, Moll!” she exclaimed, fearfully. “He has been at Portsmouth’s since high noon. I could see it in his eyes.” Her own eyes snapped as she thought of the hated French rival, whom she had not yet seen, but whose relation to the royal household, as she thought, gave her the King’s ear almost at will.

She walked nervously back and forth, then turned quickly upon her companion, asking her, who knew nothing, a hundred questions, all in one little breath. “What is she? How looks she? What is her charm, her fascination, the magic of her art? Is she short, tall, fat, lean, joyous or sombre? I must know.”

“Oh, Nell, what will you do?” cried Moll in fearful accents as she watched her beautiful mistress standing passion-swayed before her like a queen in the moonlight, the little toe of her slipper nervously beating the sward as she general-like marshalled her wits for the battle.

“See her, see her,–from top to toe!” Nell at length exclaimed. “Oh, there will be sport, sweet mouse. France again against England–the stake, a King!”

She glanced in the direction of the house and cried joyously as she saw Strings hobbling toward her.

“Heaven ever gave me a man in waiting,” she said, gleefully. “Poor fellow, he limps from youthful, war-met wounds. Comrade, are you still strong enough for service?”

“To the death for you, Mistress Nell!” he faithfully replied.

“You know the Duchess of Portsmouth, and where she lives?” artfully inquired Nell.

“Portsmouth!” he repeated, excitedly. “She was here but now, peeping at your windows.”

Nell stood aghast. Her face grew pale, and her lips trembled.

“Here, here!” she exclaimed, incredulously. “The imported hussy!”

She turned hotly upon Strings, as she had upon poor Moll, with an array of questions which almost paralyzed the old fiddler’s wits. “How looks she? What colour eyes? Does her lip arch? How many inches span her waist?”

Strings looked cautiously about, then whispered in Nell’s ear. He might as well have talked to all London; for Nell, in her excitement, repeated his words at the top of her voice.

“You overheard? Great Heavens! Drug the King and win the rights of England while he is in his cups? Bouillon–the army–Louis–the Dutch! A conspiracy!”

“Oh, dear; oh, dear,” came from Moll’s trembling lips.

Nell’s wits were like lightning playing with the clouds. Her plans were formed at once.

“Fly, fly, comrade,” she commanded Strings. “Overtake her chair. Tell the Duchess that her beloved Charles–she will understand–entreats her to sup at Ye Blue Boar Inn, within the hour. Nay, she will be glad enough to come. Say he awaits her alone. Run, run, good Strings, and you shall have a hospital to nurse these wounds, as big as Noah’s ark; and the King shall build it for the message.”

Strings hastened down the path, fired by Nell’s inspiration, with almost the eagerness of a boy.

“Run, run!” cried Nell, in ecstasy, as she looked after him and dwelt gleefully upon the outcome of her plans.

He disappeared through the trees.

“Heigh-ho!” she said, with a light-hearted step. “Now, Moll, we’ll get our first sight of the enemy.”

She darted into the house, dragging poor Moll after her.