you remember what you said should happen before we return
to England?"

Jane hung her head. "I remember."

"Well?"

She then put her hand in mine and murmured, "I am ready any time you
wish."

Great heaven! I thought I should go out of my senses. She should have
told me gradually. I had to do something to express my exultation, so
I walked over to a bronze statue of Bacchus, about my size--that is,
height--put my hat--which I had been carrying under my arm--on his
head, cut a few capers in an entirely new and equally antic step, and
then drew back and knocked that Bacchus down. Jane thought I had gone
stark mad, and her eyes grew big with wonder, but I walked proudly
back to her after my victory over Bacchus, and reassured her--with a
few of Mary's messages that I had still left over, if the truth must
be told. Then we made arrangements that resulted in our marriage next
morning.

Accordingly, Queen Mary and one or two others went with us down to a
little church, where, as fortune would have it, there was a little
priest ready to join together in the holy bonds of wedlock little
Jane and little me. Everything so appropriate, you see; I suppose in
the whole world we couldn't have found another set of conditions so
harmonious. Mary laughed and cried, and laughed again, and clapped her
hands over and over, and said it was "like a play wedding"; and, as
she kissed Jane, quietly slipped over her head a beautiful diamond
necklace that was worth full ten thousand pounds--aside, that is, from
the millions of actual value, because it came from Mary. "A play
wedding" it was; and a play life it has been ever since.

We were barely settled at court in Paris when Mary began to put her
plans in motion and unsettle things generally. I could not but recall
Henry's sympathy toward Louis, for the young queen soon took it upon
herself to make life a burden to the Father of his People; and, in
that particular line, I suppose she had no equal in all the length and
breadth of Christendom.

I heartily detested King Louis, largely, I think, because of prejudice
absorbed from Mary, but he was, in fact, a fairly good old man, and at
times I could but pity him. He was always soft in heart and softer in
head, especially where women were concerned. Take his crazy attempt to
seize the Countess of Croy while he was yet Duke of Orleans; and his
infatuation for the Italian woman, for whom he built the elaborate
burial vault--much it must hav