Chapter 4
THE EVENING AND THE MORNING STAR. Old Froissart tells us, in his Chronicles, that when King Edward beheld the Countess of Salisbury at her castle gate, he thought he had never seen before so noble nor so fair a lady; he was stricken therewith to the heart with a sparkle of fine love, that endured long after; he thought no lady in the world so worthy to be beloved, as she. And so likewise thought Paul Flemming, when he beheld the English lady in the fair light of a summer morning. I will not disguise the truth. She is my heroine; and I mean to describe her with great truth and beauty, so that all shall be in love with her, and I most of all. Mary Ashburton was in her twentieth summer. Like the fair maiden Amoret, she was sitting in the lap of womanhood. They did her wrong, who said she wa
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