Annora said:
'Gone, of course; more hatefully than all the rest.'
My brother added, with a smile that evidently cost him an effort:
'You are the only pearl of Ribaumont left, Meg, except this one,'
showing me his ring of thin silver with one pearl set in it; 'I kept
back this one in memory of my grandmother. So Nan will have to go to
her first ball without them.'
And had little Nan never been to a ball? No; she had never danced
except that Christmas when a troop of cavaliers had been quartered at
Walwyn--a merry young captain and his lieutenant, who had sent for
the fiddles, and made them have a dance in the hall, Berenger, and
Nan, and all. And not a week after, the young captain, ay, and our
dear Berry, were lying in their blood at Alresford. Had Nan's heart
been left there? I wondered, when I saw how little she brightened at
the mention of the Court ball where she was to appear next week, and
to which it seemed my mother trusted that I should be invited in
token of my being forgiven.
I tried to say that I had never meant to return to the world, and
that I still kept to my mourning; but my mother said with authority
that I had better be grateful for any token of favour that was
vouchsafed to me. She took me into her apartment after supper, and
talked to me very seriously; telling me that I must be very careful,
for that I had been so imprudent, that I should certainly have been
deprived of the custody of my son, if not imprisoned, unless my good
godmother, Queen Henrietta, and herself had made themselves
responsible for me.
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