Stray Pearls | Page 6

time, nor did my partner
address a single word to me, though I knew he was near me; I was only
too thankful that he did not try to address me.
To my joy, when we had made our final reverences, he never came near
me again all the evening. I found myself among some young maidens
who were friends of mine, and in our eager talk together I began to
forget what had passed, or to hope it was only some teasing pastime of
the Prince and Eustace.
When we were seated in the coach on the way to our house my father
began to laugh and marvel which had been the most shy, the gallant or
the lady, telling my mother she need never reproach the English with
bashfulness again after this French specimen.
'How will he and little Meg ever survive to-morrow's meeting!' he said.
Then I saw it was too true, and cried out in despair to beg them to let
me stay at home, and not send me from them; but my mother bade me
not be a silly wench. I had always known that I was to be married in
France and the queen and my half-brother, M. de Solivet, had found an
excellent parti for me. I was not to embarrass matters by any folly, but I
must do her credit, and not make her regret that she had not sent me to
a convent to be educated.
Then I clung to my father. I could hold him tight in the dark, and the
flambeaux only cast in a fitful flickering light. 'Oh, sir,' said I, 'you
cannot wish to part with your little Meg!'
'You are your mother's child, Meg,' he said sadly. 'I gave you up to her
to dispose of at her will.'
'And you will thank me one of these days for your secure home,' said
my mother. 'If these rogues continue disaffected, who knows what they
may leave us in England!'
'At least we should be together,' I cried, and I remember how I fondled
my father's hand in the dark, and how he returned it. We should never
have thought of such a thing in the light; he would have been ashamed
to allow such an impertinence, and I to attempt it.

Perhaps it emboldened me to say timidly: 'If he were not so old---'
But my mother declared that she could not believe her ears that a child
of hers should venture on making such objections--so unmaidenly, so
undutiful to a parti selected by the queen and approved by her parents.
As the coach stopped at our own door I perceived that certain strange
noises that I had heard proceeded from Eustace laughing and chuckling
to himself all the way. I must say I thought it very unkind and cruel
when we had always loved each other so well. I would hardly bid him
good-night, but ran up to the room I shared with nurse and Annora, and
wept bitterly through half the night, little comforted by nurse's
assurance that old men were wont to let their wives have their way far
more easily than young ones did.

CHAPTER II
.
A LITTLE MUTUAL AVERSION.

I had cried half the night, and when in the morning little Nan wanted to
hear about my ball, I only answered that I hated the thought of it. I was
going to be married to a hideous old man, and be carried to France, and
should never see any of them again. I made Nan cry too, and we both
came down to breakfast with such mournful faces that my mother chid
me sharply for making myself such a fright.
Then she took me away to the still-room, and set me for an hour to
make orange cakes, while she gave orders for the great dinner that we
were to give that day, I knew only too well for whose sake; and if I had
only known which orange cake was for my betrothed, would not it have
been a bitter one! By and by my mother carried me off to be dressed.
She never trusted the tiring-woman to put the finishing touches with
those clumsy English fingers; and, besides, she bathed my swollen
eyelids with essences, and made me rub my pale cheeks with a scarlet
ribbon, speaking to me so sharply that I should not have dared to shed
another tear.
When I was ready, all in white, and she, most stately in blue velvet and
gold, I followed her down the stairs to the grand parlour, where stood

my father, with my brothers and one or two persons in black, who I
found were a notary and his clerk, and there was a table before them
with