An expression of joy spread over her features; her eyes sparkled again; her cheek flushed, and springing from the prie-dieu, she raised the red arras, opened a little door by withdrawing a bar of oak, and stooping low the young Duke of Rothesay entered from a secret staircase, to which he alone had access, and which communicated with the lobby of the house and its arcades below.
"Tears?" said the handsome prince, taking her tenderly in his arms, and kissing her on the lips and on the eyes. "Dearest, why this emotion?"
But Margaret only sobbed, drooped her head upon his breast, and wept.
"It was my happiness to see you; but you did not observe me to-day."
"See thee, dearest Maggie," said the prince, throwing aside his casquetel and rich mantle; "I looked all amid the glittering crowd that stood by the western gate for thee, and thee only; but, whichever way I turned, could see nothing save the enormous fantange of Madam the Duchess of Montrose. I vow it looks like a kirk steeple! But now," added Rothesay, with a smile of inexpressible tenderness, "thou forgettest, I have one other little mouth to kiss."
Margaret drew back the curtain of an alcove, and there, within a little couch, canopied by rich hangings of rose-coloured velvet, lay a pretty child of not more than eight months old, plump, fair, and round, with its small face and cheeks, tinted like rose-leaves, encircled by a lace cap. Two hands were also visible, so small and so very diminutive, that but for their dimples they might have passed for those of a fairy. The prince knelt down, and while his heart rose to his lips, kissed gently the soft warm cheek of the sleeping baby that in after years was to be Lady Gordon of Badenoch; and after gently closing the curtain, again he pressed Margaret to his breast, and seated her beside him.
"Life is so sweet!" said he, "when one has something to love, and is beloved again; and you, my Maggie, are a diamond among women."
"And thou wilt never tire of thy poor little Margaret?"
"Tire of thee?" sighed the prince, smiling; "dear Maggie, since I knew thee I have only begun to live—to know joy. To me it seems that we have but one heart, one soul, and that without thee I should now have neither. And thou hast confided to me thy life, thy love, thy destiny, and this dear infant, the pledge of them all. Oh, Margaret, without thee, how dark would this world be to Rothesay?"
"And yet, prince, for one long month we have not met."