e times of great state and ceremony, yet they were also
very demonstrative times, when tears and embracings were expected of
near kindred; and, indeed, the King and Queen were equally occupied
with their brother and nieces; but presently Eleanor heard a low voice
observe, with a sort of sarcastic twang, 'If Madame has sufficiently
satiated her tenderness, perhaps she will remember the due of others.'
Margaret started as if stung, and Eleanor, looking up, beheld a face,
young but sharp, and with a keen, hard, set look in the narrow eyes,
contracted brow, and thin lips, that made her feel as though the serpent
had found his way into her paradise. Hastily turning, Margaret presented
her sisters to her husband, who bowed, and kissed each with those
strange thin lips, that again made Eleanor shudder, perhaps because of
his compliment, 'We are graced by these ladies, in whom we have another
Madame la Dauphine, as well as an errant beauty.'

Jean appropriated the last words, but Elleen felt sure that the earlier
ones were ironical, both to her and to the Dauphiness, on whose cheeks
they brought a flush. The two kings, however, turned to receive the
sisters, and nothing could be kinder than the tone of King Charles and
Queen Marie towards the sisters of their good daughter, as they termed
the Dauphiness, who on her side was welcomed by Rene as the sweet niece,
sharer of his tastes, who brought minstrelsy and poetry in her train.

'Trust her for that, my fair uncle,' said her husband in a cold, dry
tone.

All the royal personages sat down on the cushions spread on the grass
to the 'rural fare,' as King Rene called it, which he had elaborately
prepared for them, while the music sounded from the trees in welcome.

All was, as the kind prince announced, without ceremony, and he placed
Lord Suffolk, as the representative of Henry VI., next to the young
Infanta Margaret, and contrived that the Dauphiness should sit between
her two sisters, whose hands she clasped from time to time within her
own in an ecstasy of delight, while inquiries came from time to time,
low breathed in her native tongue, for wee Mary and Jamie and baby
Annaple. 'The very sound of your tongues is music to my lugs,' she said.
'And how much mair when ye speak mine ain bonnie Scotch, sic as I never
hear save by times when one archer calls to another. Jeanie, you favour
our mother. 'Tis gude for ye! I am blithe one of ye is na like puir
Marget!'

'Dinna say th