not, my dear child,' said the young Queen, taking Eustacie's arm
as she rose for the same purpose. 'Obey the King, and he will take care
that all goes well.'

The gentle Elisabeth was, however, the least regarded member of the
royal family. Her mother-in-law had not even waited to greet her, but
had hurried the King into his cabinet, with a precipitation that made
the young Queen's tender heart conclude that some dreadful disaster had
occurred, and before Mademoiselle de Ribaumont had had time to make her
reverence, she exclaimed, breathlessly, 'Oh, is it ill news? Not from
Vienna?'

'No, no, Madame; reassure yourself,' replied Diane; 'it is merely that
her Majesty, being on the way to Monceaux with Mesdames, turned out
of her road to make a flying visit to your graces, and endeavour to
persuade you to make her party complete.'

Elisabeth looked as if questioning with herself if this would possibly
be the whole explanation. Monceaux was a castle belonging to the Queen
Dowager at no great distance from Montpipeau, but there had been no
intention of leaving Paris before the wedding, which was fixed for the
seventeenth of August, and the bridegroom was daily expected. She asked
who was the party at Monceaux, and was told that Madame de Nemours had
gone thither the evening before, with her son, M. de Guise, to make
ready; and that Monsieur was escorting thither his two sisters, Madame
de Lorraine and Madame Marguerite. The Queen-mother had set out before
them very early in the morning.

'You must have made great speed,' said Elisabeth; 'it is scarcely two
o'clock.'

'Truly we did, Madame; two of our horses even died upon the road; but
the Queen was anxious to find the King ere he should set off on one of
his long chases.'

Diane, at every spare moment, kept her eyes interrogatively fixed on her
cousin, and evidently expected that the taciturn Queen, to whom a long
conversation, in any language but Spanish, was always a grievance, would
soon dismiss them both; and Eustacie did not know whether to be thankful
or impatient, as Elisabeth, with tardy, hesitating, mentally-translated
speech, inquired into every circumstance of the death of the poor
horses, and then into all the court gossip, which she was currently
supposed neither to hear nor understand; and then bethought herself
that this good Mademoiselle de Ribaumont could teach her that embroidery
stitch she had so long wished to learn. Taking her arm, she entered
t