"Not at first," was the reply. "Kings may have a divine right, but they have not a divine look when clothed in common wool. You are a handsome figure of a man, but so is many a forester, and even your daughter did not recognize you until you had hugged her like a bear. But now you look very much as you did when I saw you at Ghent."
"You saw me at Ghent?" repeated Maximilian.
"Oh, yes; I can not flatter myself that you saw my fair face, for it was the day you wedded our Duchess of Burgundy; but I remember you for all that, and I have described your appearance on that day a dozen times to my little princess."
None was happier than Lady Clotilde
Among the company of ladies and gentlemen who surrounded the supper-table none was happier than the Lady Clotilde. She wore a costume carefully copied from one she had seen worn by Anne of Beaujeu, and which the tailor who had fashioned it before Lady Clotilde left Amboise would remember to the last day of his life, from the severe tongue lashings he received while he was putting it together. It was of a heavy velvet, bordered to the knees in rich dark fur; about her neck were strings and strings of pearls; a veil of silver tissue bound her brow and hung down her back, while her hair, drawn into a mass on the top of her head, was covered by a sparkling net and spread out on either side like the wings of a butterfly.
"I should think that some of those pearls would get lost in the hollows of Clotilde's neck," muttered Le Glorieux to himself. This reminded him of the moonstone pendant and he wondered for the fiftieth time where it could be. "I have no faith in those curses that were to follow on the loss of the trinket," thought he. "If they had been genuine, something would be happening to her by this time. And she is just as healthy as ever; I watched her at the table, where she ate about four capon wings, to say nothing of a quantity of roast kid and a good many other things. But her luck always has been something wonderful, and a misfortune that would come at full gallop after anybody else would pass Clotilde by and forget all about her."
The subject of piety came up that evening; Maximilian, who was always gay and fond of his joke, but nevertheless had great reverence for the pious teaching he had received in his youth, said, "My instructors took pains to impress upon me the fear of God, and they laid great stress upon the commandments to believe in one God, to honor my father and mother, and to do unto others as I would have others do to me."
The Lady Clotilde listened to him as one entranced. Maximilian, who was very good-natured, had made one or two complimentary remarks to her, and she was in high feather in consequence.
"All the world can see how well your Highness lives up to your religious training," said she. "I, too, have had all the great truths so thoroughly impressed upon my mind that I never in any circumstances could forget them. I could no more go to sleep without my devotional reading than I could exist without eating. If your Highness is interested in handsome books, you would admire my Lives of the Saints, which I read every night before I close my eyes in slumber. My royal cousin, the Queen of France"—and the Lady Clotilde straightened herself up at the mention of her relationship to so great a personage—"knowing my passion for devotional reading, took from me my old book worn out with constant perusal, and gave me another instead. It was printed by a monk, with his own hands. My royal relative is very fond of such books."