"Wait until you see the Prince," insisted Anne childishly. "There is no one like him—no one."
"So I have always heard," said Rénèe sincerely.
"Did you ever see his first wife?" asked Anne abruptly. "Was she pretty? Did he care for her?"
"I never saw the first Princess, Your Grace. They were very young when they married, and she died very soon."
"Well, I am sure he has forgotten her. If you are so afraid of the Papists and hate them so, why do you come with me to Brussels?" she added maliciously.
The bitter truth, "I must go where I can earn my bread," rose to Rénèe's lips, but she suppressed it and merely replied, "I am not afraid of any one corrupting my faith, Your Grace, and I shall be with a Protestant mistress."
"I suppose you would rather stay here," said Anne, "if you could find some Lutheran to marry, but you are not very young and you have red hair, therefore you must make the best of it and come to Brussels."
Rénèe was absolutely unmoved by her mistress's rudeness; she hardly heard the words.
"Have you any relations in Brussels?" asked Anne.
"No," replied the waiting-woman, "nor any in the Netherlands. I think—we are all scattered—wandering, or still for ever in the grave;" then quickly changing a subject on which she had been betrayed into speaking with feeling, she asked, "Has His Grace's alchemist's experiment succeeded? It was to be known whether or no this week."