He replied, "Some things that happen in royal families are so very funny that they would make Pandora, my hawk, laugh, though she is such a sulky little brute. Once explained to Pittacus, my donkey, and he would smile until every tooth in his head could be seen. You asked if this child's father was married to a woman who was unkind to her, and her nurse said he was about to be married. And you, Cousin Anne, ha! ha! you are to be the cruel stepmother!"
There was no denying the fact that the Lady Anne was about to be the stepmother of the Lady Marguerite, for Maximilian, who was still young and handsome, was shortly to marry the young Duchess of Brittany.
But again the duchess seemed to be embarrassed, and she turned her back to Le Glorieux as she said, "My dear Lady Marguerite, I will not keep you here a moment when you must be overcome with fatigue. I will send you to your apartments, where supper shall be served you, and then when you have retired and are resting I will come and talk to you, if I may."
The princess, so far from being conducted to the plain but comfortable quarters which would have been hers had her identity remained a secret, was now shown all the deference accorded a person of rank. Pages, maids, and even ladies of high degree, rushed about to make her comfortable, a delicious supper was served, and she lay down to rest beneath the gold-embroidered canopy of a couch even more sumptuous than her own bed in the palace of Amboise.
Cunegunda, who had been given a room next to that of her young mistress, after smoothing the silken coverlid over her young charge, satisfied that nothing dreadful was going to happen to-night, at least, had retired, and was sleeping the sleep of the fatigued when the Lady Anne entered the apartment of her young guest.
The duchess had changed her gown for a long robe of dark blue silk trimmed in fur, with a little cap of the same, and in this plainer garb she seemed younger and less stately than in the earlier part of the evening.
The princess, with her bright hair flowing over the cushions against which she leaned, seemed pathetically young, and it is a singular fact that about these two children revolved the most important events in the history of Europe at that time, events which drove great statesmen to their wits' end, and changed the map of France for all time.
"And now tell me all about it"
Sitting on the edge of the bed the Lady Anne took the hand Marguerite stretched out to her, and stroking it gently, said simply, "And now tell me all about it. I long to know why France so lightly guards a princess intrusted to her keeping."