amiltons, and
scarcely had she been seen at the window than all these banners bent
before her, with the shouts a hundred times repeated of "Long live Mary
of Scotland! Long live our queen!" Then, without giving heed to the
disarray of her toilet, lovely and chaste with her emotion and her
happiness, she greeted them in her turn, her eyes full of tears; but this
time they were tears of joy. However, the queen recollected that she was
barely covered, and blushing at having allowed herself to be thus carried
away in her ecstasy, she abruptly drew back, quite rosy with confusion.

Then she had an instant's womanly fright: she had fled from Lochleven
Castle in the Douglas livery, and without either the leisure or the
opportunity for taking women's clothes with her. But she could not
remain attired as a man; so she explained her uneasiness to Mary Seyton,
who responded by opening the closets in the queen's room. They were
furnished, not only with robes, the measure for which, like that of the
suit, had been taken from Mary Fleming, but also with all the necessaries
for a woman's toilet. The queen was astonished: it was like being in a
fairy castle.

"Mignonne," said she, looking one after another at the robes, all the
stuffs of which were chosen with exquisite taste, "I knew your father was
a brave and loyal knight, but I did not think him so learned in the
matter of the toilet. We shall name him groom of the wardrobe."

"Alas! madam," smilingly replied Mary Seyton, "you are not mistaken: my
father has had everything in the castle furbished up to the last
corselet, sharpened to the last sword, unfurled to the last banner; but
my father, ready as he is to die for your Majesty, would not have dreamed
for an instant of offering you anything but his roof to rest under, or
his cloak to cover you. It is Douglas again who has foreseen everything,
prepared everything--everything even to Rosabelle, your Majesty's
favourite steed, which is impatiently awaiting in the stable the moment
when, mounted on her, your Majesty will make your triumphal re-entry into
Edinburgh."

"And how has he been able to get her back again?" Mary asked. "I thought
that in the division of my spoils Rosabelle had fallen to the fair Alice,
my brother's favourite sultana?"

"Yes, yes," said Mary Seyton, "it was so; and as her value was known, she
was kept under lock and key by an army of grooms; but Douglas is the man
of miracles, and, as I have told