timate, excused herself from dancing with
the bridegroom. He therefore fell to the share of the Dauphiness Queen
of Scots, a lovely, bright-eyed, laughing girl, who so completely
fascinated the little fellow, that he convulsed the court by observing
that he should not have objected to be married to some one like her,
instead of a little baby like Eustacie.

Amid all the mirth, it was not only the Chevalier and the Queen who bore
displeased looks. In truth, both were too great adepts in court life
to let their dissatisfaction appear. The gloomiest face was that of him
whose triumph it was--the bridegroom's father, the Baron de Ribaumont.
He had suffered severely from the sickness that prevailed in St.
Quentin, when in the last August the Admiral de Coligny had been
besieged there by the Spaniards, and all agreed that he had never been
the same man since, either in health or in demeanour. When he came back
from his captivity and found the King bent on crowning his return by
the marriage of the children, he had hung back, spoken of scruples about
such unconscious vows, and had finally only consented under stress of
the personal friendship of the King, and on condition that he and his
wife should at once have the sole custody of the little bride. Even then
he moved about the gay scene with so distressed and morose an air that
he was evidently either under the influence of a scruple of conscience
or of a foreboding of evil.

No one doubted that it had been the latter, when, three days later,
Henri II., in the prime of his strength and height of his spirits,
encountered young Des Lorges in the lists, received the splinter of a
lance in his eye, and died two days afterwards.

No sooner were his obsequies over than the Baron de Ribaumont set off
with his wife and the little bridal pair for his castle of Leurre, in
Normandy, nor was he ever seen at court again.

CHAPTER II. THE SEPARATION

Parted without the least regret,
Except that they had ever met.
* * * *
Misses, the tale that I relate,
This lesson seems to carry:
Choose not alone a proper mate,
But proper time to marry!
COWPER, PAIRING TIME ANTICIPATED

'I will have it!'

'Thou shalt not have it!'

'Diane says it is mine.'

'Diane knows nothing about it.'

'Gentlemen always yield to ladies.'

'Wives ought to mind their husbands.'

'Then I will not be thy wife.'

'Thou c