"You do not look like an invalid," remarked the duchess, surveying the stout figure and round face of the speaker.
"It is the migraine, your Grace, a pain which has troubled me day and night, and which leeches tell me is liable to reach the heart. Oh, dear and gracious lady, I should not care for myself; life is not so precious that I should want to cling to it; it is for this little one that I want to live, and for that reason I have taken this long journey to implore the blessed saint to cure me, that my life may be spared until she no longer needs me."
"Is the child an orphan?"
"Her mother is dead, your Grace. Her mother bade me always to be a friend to her, and I promised."
"Her father is married to a woman who is unkind to her?"
"He—he—is about to be married, your Grace," stammered the woman.
"Cousin Anne," again interrupted the jester, "this woman is telling the truth about the visit to the shrine of Saint Roch. I saw her and the child going there this morning just as I was coming away after a long prayer to be relieved of the gout, which I never have had, but which may overtake me like a thief in the night."
Every one smiled at this remark save the duchess, who again turned to the Austrian. "Why did you bring the child with you upon a journey fraught with discomfort, if not with danger?"
"Because, your Grace, I have sworn never to leave her, and never a night of her life has she slept without my first smoothing the coverlid over her little body."
"What is her name? Who is she?"