“She has reason to look melancholy, Monsieur,” said Madame de Montmorin, in a low tone, and with a glance of deep sympathy at the Queen, who sat rigid, palely smiling in her golden coach.  “Did you not know that the Dauphin is very ill?  ’Tis little talked about at court, for the Queen will not have the subject mentioned, but he has been ailing for a year past.”

As she spoke, the carriage of the Queen passed close under the balcony, and at that instant a woman in the crowd, looking Her Majesty full in the face, cried out, shrilly, “Long live d’Orleans!” The pallid Queen sank back, as though struck, into the arms of the Princess de Lamballes, who rode beside her.  But in an instant she was herself again, and sat haughtily erect, with a bitter smile curving her beautiful lips.

“A cruel blow!” said Mr. Morris, under his breath, to Calvert.  “Her unhappiness was complete enough without that.  Arrayed in those rich stuffs, with the flowers in her hair and bosom and with that inscrutable and melancholy expression on her beautiful face, she looks as might have looked some Athenian maiden decked for sacrifice.  Indeed, all the noblesse have a curious air of fatality about them, or so it seems to me, and somehow look as if they were going to their doom.  Take a good look at this splendid pageant, Ned!  ’Tis the first time you have seen royalty, the first time you have seen the nobility in all the magnificence of ceremony.  It may be the last.”

Mr. Jefferson got up from his place beside Madame de Tesse and came over to where Calvert and Mr. Morris were standing.

“What do you think of the King and Queen?” he asked, in a low voice, laying his hand, in his customary affectionate manner, on Calvert’s shoulder.  “The King has a benevolent, open countenance, do you not think so?—­but the Queen has a haughty, wayward look, and the imperious, unyielding spirit of her Austrian mother.”

“She will need all the spirit of her whole family,” broke in Mr. Morris, warmly, “if she is to bear up beneath such wanton insults as that just offered her.”

“I fear that the hand of Heaven will weigh heavily on that selfish, proud, capricious sovereign, and that she will have to suffer many humiliations,” replied Mr. Jefferson, coldly, for he disliked and distrusted Marie Antoinette profoundly, and always believed that she was largely responsible for the terrible disasters which overtook France, and that had Louis been free of her influence and machinations, he had been able to disentangle himself and his kingdom from the fatal coil into which they were drawn.

“As for myself, I can think only that she is a woman and in distress,” said Mr. Morris, looking after the Queen’s coach, which rolled slowly through the crowded street, making a glittering track of light where the noonday sun (for ’twas past twelve o’clock by that time) struck the golden panels.  It was followed on one side by a long line of carriages containing the princesses of the