had only known which orange cake was for my betrothed, would not it
have been a bitter one! By and by my mother carried me off to be
dressed. She never trusted the tiring-woman to put the finishing
touches with those clumsy English fingers; and, besides, she bathed
my swollen eyelids with essences, and made me rub my pale cheeks with
a scarlet ribbon, speaking to me so sharply that I should not have
dared to shed another tear.

When I was ready, all in white, and she, most stately in blue velvet
and gold, I followed her down the stairs to the grand parlour, where
stood my father, with my brothers and one or two persons in black,
who I found were a notary and his clerk, and there was a table before
them with papers, parchment, a standish, and pens. I believe if it
had been a block, and I had had to lay my head on it, like poor Lady
Jane Grey, I could not have been much more frightened.

There was a sound of wheels, and presently the gentleman usher came
forward, announcing the Most Noble the Marquis de Nidemerle, and the
Lord Viscount of Bellaise. My father and brothers went half-way down
the stairs to meet them, my mother advanced across the room, holding
me in one hand and Annora in the other. We all curtsied low, and as
the gentlemen advanced, bowing low, and almost sweeping the ground
with the plumes in their hats, we each had to offer them a cheek to
salute after the English fashion. The old marquis was talking French
so fast that I could not understand him in the least, but somehow a
mist suddenly seemed to clear away from before me, and I found that I
was standing before that alarming table, not with him, but with
something much younger--not much older, indeed, than Eustace.

I began to hear what the notary was reading out, and behold it was--