Even to her stepmother and little sisters, whom she
did not love, she was never unkind, though she lived entirely apart,
and kept her own little court separately at the Louvre, and very odd
things we did there.
Sometimes we were all dressed up as the gods and goddesses, she being
always Minerva--unless as Diana she conducted us as her nymphs to the
chase in the park at Versailles. Sometimes we were Mademoiselle
Scudery's heroines, and we wrote descriptions of each other by these
feigned names, some of which appear in her memoirs. And all the time
she was hoping to marry the Emperor, and despising the suit of Queen
Henrietta for our Prince of Wales, who, for his part, never laughed
so much in secret as when he attended this wonderful and classical
Court.
CHAPTER XV.
A STRANGER THANKSGIVING DAY.
There was a curious scene in our salon the day after the news had
come of the great victory of Lens. Clement Darpent had been brought
in by my brother, who wished him to hear some English songs which my
sister and I had been practicing. He had been trying to learn
English, and perhaps understood it better than he could speak it, but
he was somewhat perplexed by those two gallant lines--
'I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.'
Annora's eyes flashed with disappointed anger as she said, 'You enter
not into the sentiment, Monsieur.
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