ground her man sets foot on, and never getting aught but a gibe
or a girn from him, and, for the very wilfulness of her sair heart, ever
putting herself farther from him!'

Such was the piteous account that Madame de Ste. Petronelle (otherwise
Dame Elspeth Johnstone) gave, and which the Lady of Glenuskie soon
perceived to be only too true during the days spent at Nanci. To the
two young sisters the condition of things was less evident. To Margaret
their presence was such sunshine, that they usually saw her in her
highest, most flighty, and imprudent spirits, taking at times absolute
delight in shocking her two duennas; and it was in this temper that, one
hot noon day, coming after an evening of song and music, finding Alain
Chartier asleep on a bench in the garden, she declared that she must
kiss the mouth from which such sweet strains proceeded, and bending
down, imprinted so light a kiss as not to waken him, then turned round,
her whole face rippling with silent laughter at the amusement of Jean
and Margaret of Anjou, Elleen's puzzled gravity, and the horror and
dismay of her elder ladies. But Dame Lilias saw what she did not--a look
of triumphant malice on the face of Jamet de Tillay. Or at other times
she would sit listening, with silent tears in her eyes, to plaintive
Scottish airs on Eleanor's harp, which she declared brought back her
father's voice to her, and with it the scent of the heather, and the
very sight of Arthur's Seat or the hills of Perth. Elleen had some
sudden qualms of heart lest her sister's blitheness should be covering
wounds within; but she was too young to be often haunted by such
thoughts in the delightful surroundings in which that Easter week was
spent--the companionship of their sister and of the two young Infantas
of Anjou, as well as all the charm of King Rene's graceful attention.
Eleanor had opened to her fresh stores of beauty, exquisite
illuminations, books of all kinds--legend, history, romance, poetry--all
freely displayed to her by her royal host, who took an elderly man's
delight in an intelligent girl; nor, perhaps, was the pleasure lessened
by the need of explaining to Archduke Sigismund, in German ever
improving, that which he could not understand. There was a delightful
freedom about the Court--not hard, rugged, always on the defence, like
that of Scotland; nor stiffly ecclesiastical, as had been that of Henry
of Windsor; but though there was devotion every morning, there was