n months' captivity in
Lochleven Castle.

On opening her eyes, Mary Stuart thought she had had one of those dreams
so gainful to prisoners, when waking they see again the bolts on their
doors and the bars on their windows. So the queen, unable to believe the
evidence of her senses, ran, half dressed, to the window. The courtyard
was filled with soldiers, and these soldiers all friends who had
hastened at the news of her escape; she recognised the banners of her
faithful friends, the Seytons, the Arbroaths, the Herries, and the
Hamiltons, and scarcely had she been seen at the window than all these
banners bent before her, with the shouts a hundred times repeated of
"Long live Mary of Scotland! Long live our queen!" Then, without giving
heed to the disarray of her toilet, lovely and chaste with her emotion
and her happiness, she greeted them in her turn, her eyes full of tears;
but this time they were tears of joy. However, the queen recollected
that she was barely covered, and blushing at having allowed herself to
be thus carried away in her ecstasy, she abruptly drew back, quite rosy
with confusion.

Then she had an instant's womanly fright: she had fled from Lochleven
Castle in the Douglas livery, and without either the leisure or the
opportunity for taking women's clothes with her. But she could not
remain attired as a man; so she explained her uneasiness to Mary Seyton,
who responded by opening the closets in the queen's room. They were
furnished, not only with robes, the measure for which, like that of
the suit, had been taken from Mary Fleming, but also with all the
necessaries for a woman's toilet. The queen was astonished: it was like
being in a fairy castle.

"Mignonne," said she, looking one after another at the robes, all the
stuffs of which were chosen with exquisite taste, "I knew your father
was a brave and loyal knight, but I did not think him so learned in the
matter of the toilet. We shall name him groom of the wardrobe."

"Alas! madam," smilingly replied Mary Seyton, "you are not mistaken:
my father has had everything in the castle furbished up to the last
corselet, sharpened to the last sword, unfurled to the last banner;
but my father, ready as he is to die for your Majesty, would not have
dreamed for an instant of offering you anything but his roof to rest
under, or his cloak to cover you. It is Douglas again who has foreseen
everything, prepared everything--everything even to Rosabelle, your
Ma