her cheek to his embrace, extending the same favor to the Duke of Aerschot and the Marquis of Havre.  The cavaliers then remounted and escorted the Queen to Namur, Don John riding by the side of the litter and conversing with her all the way.  It was late in the evening when the procession arrived in the city.  The streets had, however, been brilliantly illuminated; houses and shops, though it was near midnight, being in a blaze of light.  Don John believing that no attentions could be so acceptable at that hour as to provide for the repose of his guest, conducted the Queen at once to the lodgings prepared for her.  Margaret was astonished at the magnificence of the apartments into which she was ushered.  A spacious and stately hall, most gorgeously furnished, opened into a series of chambers and cabinets, worthy, in their appointments, of a royal palace.  The tent and bed coverings prepared for the Queen were exquisitely embroidered in needlework with scenes representing the battle of Lepanto.  The great hall was hung with gorgeous tapestry of satin and velvet, ornamented with columns of raised silver work, and with many figures in antique costume, of the same massive embroidery.  The rest of the furniture was also of satin, velvet, cloth of gold, and brocade.  The Queen was dazzled with so much magnificence, and one of the courtiers could not help expressing astonishment at the splendor of the apartments and decorations, which, as he observed to the Duke of Aerschot; seemed more appropriate to the palace of a powerful monarch than to the apartments of a young bachelor prince.  The Duke replied by explaining that the expensive embroidery which they saw was the result, not of extravagance, but of valor and generosity.  After the battle of Lepanto, Don John had restored the two sons, who had been taken prisoners, of a powerful Turkish bashaw.  The father; in gratitude had sent this magnificent tapestry as a present to the conqueror, and Don John had received it, at Milan; in which city, celebrated for the taste of its upholsterers; it had been arranged for furniture.

The next morning a grand mass with military music was performed, followed by a sumptuous banquet in the grand hall.  Don John and the Queen sat at a table three feet apart from the rest, and Ottavio Gonzaga served them wine upon his knees.  After the banquet came, as usual; the ball, the festivities continuing till late in the night, and Don John scarcely quitting his fair guest for a moment.  The next afternoon, a festival had been arranged upon an island in the river.  The company embarked upon the Meuse, in a fleet of gaily-scarfed; and painted vessels, many of which were filled with musicians.  Margaret reclined in her gilded barge, under a richly embroidered canopy.  A fairer and falser Queen than “Egypt,” had bewitched the famous youth who had triumphed not, lost the world, beneath the heights of Actium.  The revellers landed on the island, where the banquet was already spread within a spacious bower of ivy, and beneath umbrageous elms.  The dance upon the sward was protracted to a late hour, and the summer stars had been long in the sky when the company returned to their barges.