her
taste is."

"I do not understand?" the Queen said.

"Your Majesty will, if Mademoiselle Paleotti will consent to humour us."

At that the girl uttered a cry, and looked round the circle as if for a
way of escape; but a Court is a cruel place, in which the ugly or
helpless find scant pity. A dozen voices begged the Queen to insist;
and, amid laughter and loud jests, Bassompierre hastened to the door,
and returned with an armful of women's gear, surmounted by a wig and a
feathered hat.

"If the Queen will command mademoiselle to retire and put these on," he
said, "I will undertake to show her something that will please her."

"Go!" said the Queen.

But the girl had flung herself on her knees before her, and, clinging
to her skirts, burst, into a flood of tears and prayers; while her
sister-in-law stepped forward as if to second her, and cried out, in
great excitement, that her Majesty would not be so cruel as to--

"Hoity, toity!" said the Queen, cutting her short, very grimly. "What
is all this? I tell the girl to put on a masquerade--which it seems
that she has been keeping at some cottage--and you talk as if I were
cutting off her head! It seems to me that she escapes very lightly!
Go! go! and see, you, that you are arrayed in five minutes, or I will
deal with you!"

"Perhaps Mademoiselle de la Force will go with her, and see that
nothing is omitted," Bassompierre said with malice.

The laughter and applause with which this proposal was received took me
by surprise; but later I learned that the two young women were rivals.
"Yes, yes," the Queen said. "Go, mademoiselle, and see that she does
not keep us waiting."

Knowing what I did, I had by this time a fair idea of the discovery
which Bassompierre had made; but the mass of courtiers and ladies round
me, who had not this advantage, knew not what to expect--nor,
especially, what part M. Bassompierre had in the business--but made
most diverting suggestions, the majority favouring the opinion that
Mademoiselle Paleotti had repulsed him, and that this was his way of
avenging himself. A few of the ladies even taxed him with this, and
tried, by random reproaches, to put him at least on his defence; but,
merrily refusing to be inveigled, he made to all the same answer that
when Mademoiselle Paleotti returned they would see. This served only
to whet a curiosity already keen, insomuch that the door was watched by
as many eyes as if a miracle had been