Finally she led us forward to our great-uncle, saying:  ’Madame le Marquis, I have conversed with these children.  They love one another, and so long as that love lasts they will be better guardians to one another than ten governors or twenty dames de compagnie.’

In England we should certainly not have done all this in public, and my husband and I were terribly put to the blush; indeed, I felt my whole head and neck burning, and caught a glimpse of myself in a dreadful mirror, my white bridal dress and flaxen hair making my fiery face look, my brothers would have said, ’as if I had been skinned.’

And then, to make it all worse, a comical little crooked lady, with a keen lively face, came hopping up with hands outspread, crying:  ’Ah, let me see her!  Where is the fair Gildippe, the true heroine, who is about to confront the arrows of the Lydians for the sake of the lord of her heart?’

‘My niece,’ said the Marquis, evidently gratified by the sensation I had created, ’Mademoiselle de Scudery does you the honour of requesting to be presented to you.’

I made a low reverence, terribly abashed, and I fear it would have reduced my mother to despair, but it was an honour that I appreciated; for now that I was a married woman, I was permitted to read romances, and I had just begun on the first volume of the Grand Curus.  My husband read it to me as I worked at my embroidery, and you may guess how we enjoyed it.

But I had no power of make compliments—­nay, my English heart recoiled in anger at their making such an outcry, whether of blame or praise, at what seemed to me the simplest thing in the world.  The courtesy and consideration were perfect; as soon as these people saw that I was really abashed and distressed, they turned their attention from me.  My husband was in the meantime called to be presented to the Duke of Enghien, and I remained for a little while unmolested, so that I could recover myself a little.  Presently a soft voice close to me said ‘Madame,’ and I looked up into the beautiful countenance of Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, her blue eyes shining on me with the sweetest expression.  ‘Madame,’ she said, ’permit me to tell you how glad I am for you.’

I thanked her most heartily.  I felt this was the real tender sympathy of a being of my own age and like myself, and there were something so pathetic in her expression that I felt sorry for her.

‘You are good!  You will keep good,’ she said.

‘I hope so, Mademoiselle,’ I said.

’Ah! yes, you will.  They will not make you lose your soul against your will!’ and she clenched her delicate white hand.

‘Nobody can do that, Mademoiselle.’

’What!  Not when they drag you to balls and fete away from the cloister, where alone you can be safe?’

‘I hope not there alone,’ I said.

‘For me it is the only place,’ she repeated.  ’What is the use of wearing haircloth when the fire of the Bourbons is in one’s blood, and one has a face that all the world runs after?’