The tired horses blundered heavily along the stony streets, and crossed
more than one bridge. The town seemed pervaded by water, a deep narrow
stream like a canal, on which the houses looked, as if in feeble mockery of
Venice--houses with steep crow-step gables, some of them richly decorated;
narrow windows for the most part dark, but with here and there the yellow
light of lamp or candle.

The convent faced a broad open square, and had a large walled garden in
its rear. The coach stopped in front of a handsome doorway, and after the
travellers had been scrutinised and interrogated by the portress through an
opening in the door, they were admitted into a spacious hall, paved with
black and white marble, and adorned with a statue of the Virgin Mother, and
thence to a parlour dimly lighted by a small oil lamp, where they waited
for about ten minutes, the little girl shivering with cold, before the
Superior appeared.

She was a tall woman, advanced in years, with a handsome, but melancholy
countenance. She greeted the cavalier as a familiar friend.

"Welcome to Flanders!" she said. "You have fled from that accursed country
where our Church is despised and persecuted----"

"Nay, reverend kinswoman, I have fled but to go back again as fast as
horses and sails can carry me. While the fortunes of my King are at stake,
my place is in England, or it may be in Scotland, where there are still
those who are ready to fight to the death in the royal cause. But I have
brought this little one for shelter and safe keeping, and tender usage,
trusting in you who are of kin to her as I could trust no one else--and,
furthermore, that she may be reared in the faith of her dead mother."