Three months to wait!—and all the time we are waiting for a dreadful ordeal, which we know must come. Why does Lady Sybil give us this suffering? And far more, why, why does the good God give it to us?
If I could only understand, I could bear it better.
"Ha!" says Marguerite, with a rather pitying smile. "If my Damoiselle could but know every thing, she would be content not to know more!"
Well! I suppose I am unreasonable. Yet it will be such a relief when the worst is over. But how can I wish the worst to come?
CHAPTER XIV.
SYBIL'S CHOICE.
"'Gifts!' cried the friend. He took: and, holding it
High towards the heavens, as though to meet his star,
Exclaimed,—'This, too, I owe to thee, Giafàr!'"
LEIGH HUNT.
It came at last—neither sooner for my dreading it, nor later for my wishing it—Holy Cross Day, the coronation morning.
Guy and I reached the Holy City the night before, and took up our quarters with the holy Patriarch and his Lady Irene. We were just opposite the Palace. We could see lights flashing through the loop-holes, and now and then a shadow pass behind them. It was hard to know that that house held all that we loved, and we were the only ones that dared not enter it.
The Patriarch was most disagreeably loquacious. He told us every thing. He might have been cooking the banquet and broidering the robes, for all the minute details he seemed to know. The Queen, he told us, was to be arrayed in golden baudekyn, and the Lady Isabel in rose and silver. Both the Princesses would be present, attired in gold and blue. Poor little Agnes and Helena! How little they would understand of their mother's actions!