mere romance. And oh, sister, credit
me, a Scots lassie's heart craves better food than crowns and coronets.
Hard and unco' cold be they, where there is no warmth to meet the
yearning soul beneath, that would give all and ten times more for one
glint of a loving eye, one word from a tender lip.' Again she had one of
those hysteric bursts of tears, but she laughed herself back, crying,
'But what is the treason wifie saying of her gudeman--her Louis, that
never yet said a rough word to his Meg?'

Then came another laugh, but she gathered herself up at a summons to
come down and mount.

She was tenderly embraced by all, King Rene kissing her and calling her
his dear niece and princess of minstrelsy, who should come to him at
Toulouse and bestow the golden violet.

She rode away, looking back smiling and kissing her hand, but Eleanor's
eyes grew wide and her cheeks pale.

'Jean,' she murmured, low and hoarsely, 'Margaret's shroud is up to her
throat.'

'Hoots with thy clavers,' exclaimed Jeanie in return. 'I never let thee
sing that fule song, but Meg's fancies have brought the megrims into
thine head! Thou and she are pair.'

'That we shall be nae longer,' sighed Eleanor. 'I saw the shroud as
clear as I see yon cross on the spire.'

CHAPTER 8. STINGS

'Yet one asylum is my own,
Against the dreaded hour;
A long, a silent, and a lone,
Where kings have little power.'--SCOTT.

At Chalons, the Sieur de Terreforte and his son Olivier, a very
quiet, stiff, and well-trained youth, met Sir Patrick and the Lady of
Glenuskie. Terreforte was within the province of Champagne, and as
long as the Court remained at Chalons the Sieur felt bound to remain in
attendance on the King--lodging at his own house, or hotel, as he called
it, in the city. Dame Lilias did not regret anything which gave her a
little more time with her daughter, and enabled Annis to make a little
more acquaintance with her bridegroom and his family before being
left alone with them. Moreover, she hoped to see something more of her
cousins the princesses.

But they came not. The Dauphin and his wife arrived from their excursion
and took up their abode in the Castle of Surry le Chateau, at a short
distance from thence and thither went the Lady of Glenuskie with her
husband to pay her respects, and present the betrothed of her daughter.

Margaret was sitting in a shady nook of the walls, under the shade of a
tall, mass