usual self, harshly rebuffed them.

At twilight Hannibal Melas appeared, full of joyous excitement.
Granvelle sent Barbara word that the doorkeeper Mangin would show her a
good seat. His Eminence desired to be remembered to her, and said that
only those who had been closely associated with his Majesty would be
admitted to this ceremony, and he knew that she ranked among the first of
these.

Barbara's features brightened and, as she saw how happy it made the
Maltese to be the bearer of so pleasant a message, she forced herself
to give a joyous expression to her gratitude. In the evening, and during
a sleepless night, she considered whether she should make use of the
invitation. What she had expected for herself and her child from
Charles's abdication had been mere chimeras of the brain, and what could
this spectacle offer her? She would only behold with her eyes what she
had often enough imagined with the utmost distinctness--the great monarch
divested of his grandeur and all his dignities.

But Granvelle's message that she was one cf those who stood nearest to
the abdicating sovereign constantly echoed in her ears, and her absence
from this ceremony would have seemed to her unnatural--nay, an offence
against something necessary.

Her husband was pleased with the great minister's kindness to his wife.
He had nothing to do in the palace, but he intended to look for the
children, who had gone there before noon with Frau Lamperi, that they
might get the best possible view of the approach of the princes and
dignitaries.