had already seen to the safety of every window and door. Above
stairs in a retired chamber the little Queen had been sequestered from
any breath of the plague-stricken sentries keeping their last vigil
without, and also that she might be safe from every random bullet if the
place should be attacked.

Rollo followed the Basque upwards to the roof, and Concha, with her
_capa_ still about her shoulders, followed Rollo into the light of the
hall, nervously dragging the folds as low as possible about her knees.

The little Queen had two candles before her, and under her fingers was a
great book of maps, upon which dragons and tritons, whales and sea
monsters, writhed across uncharted seas, while an equal wealth of
unicorns and fire-breathing gryphons freely perambulated the unexplored
continental spaces. As it chanced Isabel was not at all sleepy, and to
quiet her the Basque had set out some of the illuminating materials
belonging to the order on slabs of porcelain, and with these she was
employed in making gay the tall pages with the national yellow and red,
and (as her great namesake had done before her) planting the flag of
Spain over considerably more than half the world.

But as soon as the girl's eyes fell on Concha, she sprang up and let
paint-brush and china-slab fall together to the ground.

"Oh, I know you," she cried (here Rollo trembled); "you are the new
page-boy from Aranjuez! He was to arrive to-day. What is your name?"

"Carlos," said the new page-boy from Aranjuez, from whose cheek also the
rose had momentarily fled.

"And why do you wear that curious red cap?" cried the little Queen. "I
know Dona Susana would be very angry if she saw you. Pages must show
their own hair and wear it in curls too. Have you pretty hair?"

"It is the cap of liberty the boy wears, Princess!" said the Basque
friar, breaking in quickly, and with some irony. "Do you not know that
since Senor Mendizabel came to Madrid from England we are all to have as
much liberty as we want?"

"Well," replied the Princess, tartly, "all I know is that I wish _I_ had
more of it. Dona Susana will not let me do a single thing I want to do.
But when I grow up I mean to do just what I like."

Which truly royal and Bourbon sentiment had a better fate than most
prophecies, for Isabel the Second afterwards lived to fulfil it to the
uttermost, both in the spirit and in the letter.

But the girl had not yet finished her inspection of Concha.

"Do