Certainly it was a contrast. Queen Henrietta had been in agonies of
grief at first, and I believe no day passed without her weeping for
her husband. Her eyes were red, and she looked ill; but she was
quite as ready as ever to take interest in things around her; and
she, as only English were present, made me come and sit on a stool at
her feet and describe all the straits we had endured at St. Germain,
laughing her clear ringing laugh at the notion of her solemn,
punctilious Spanish sister-in-law living, as she said, en bergere in
the middle of the winter, and especially amusing herself over her
niece Mademoiselle's little fiction that her equipage had secured
respect.
'That young Darpent is a useful and honest man,' she said. 'It is
well if your beaux yeux have secured him as a protector in these
times, my goddaughter.'
'It is for my brother's sake that he has been our friend,' I said
stiffly, and my mother added that he had been engaged in our cause in
the Ribaumont suit, as if that naturally bound him to our service,
while the indignant colour flushed into Annora's cheek at thus
dispensing with gratitude. However, we were soon interrupted, for
now that the way into the city was opened, and the widowed Queen had
left her first solitude, every one was coming to pay their respects
to her; and the first we saw arrive was Mademoiselle, who had no
sooner exchanged her compliments with her royal aunt, than, profiting
by another arrival, she drew me into a window and began: 'But, my
good Gildippe, this is serious.
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