"To lose one's head were rather an unseemly joke for a bunch of Flemish fruit; besides, methinks it were rather too dear a purchase even in the decapitating days of bluff Harry Tudor!" observed Lady Adelaide.
"Commend me the spirit," said her Grace, "of the Duchess of Milan, who, when Henry had sent an ambassador demanding her hand in marriage, she boldly desired the ambassador to tell his master that she must decline the honour which his Majesty had so graciously intended, as she had but one head: if she had had two indeed, one of them should certainly be at the disposal of his Majesty of England!"
"Ha, ha, ha,—'fore Jupiter," exclaimed Sir Patricius, "her Highness was as witty as she was spirited!—Ha, ha, ha."
The duchess now deemed it full time for her Grace to send a despatch to the palace of d'Aremberg, addressed to her old friend,—her once youthful, lovely friend—the kind associate of her early years, the Duchess d'Aremberg, notifying her arrival at Brussels, and likewise, meanwhile, expressing the cogent reasons which had rendered such a step necessary, if not imperative; at the same time also intimating her intention of calling upon the following day at an early hour specified, to pay her demonstrations of love, regard, and respect.
Accordingly, upon the following day, and at the appointed time, the duchess, accompanied solely by Lady Adelaide, waited upon her Grace d'Aremberg at the ducal palace.
Our readers no doubt possibly may recollect the relationship in which the Duchess d'Aremberg stood to the Lady Adelaide, that her Grace was Lady Adelaide's marrainé, or godmother. They too may perchance recollect the princely baptismal presents given on the august occasion, and long since narrated in our story, all of which have been duly detailed in the second chapter of the first volume of this romance.
The meeting was of the tenderest and most affecting description. The Duchess d'Aremberg had been for some years a widow, but she was not childless, she had an only son, the present Duke d'Aremberg. Her sight was much impaired, being obliged to wear spectacles; but notwithstanding this, her countenance still bore striking traits that she had once been beautiful. Her constitution had been so much impaired by ill-health, caused by paralysis, and not by years, that her Grace had nearly lost the powers of locomotion: she moved on crutches. But still her brilliant eye beamed forth intelligence; and still warm and true to all its fires, her generous and expanded heart was alive to every social tie, to every noble impulse, and every endearing feeling. While, meantime, every object around bore strong indications of mortality; in one station was placed her once favourite paroquet, that had gaily talked in its cage, and had each successive morning duly greeted its mistress's approach.—There now it stood a stiff and motionless mummy, a mere mockery of what it once had been! The cherished and favourite lapdog too had undergone a similar transformation, and starchly stuffed, and studded with its glaring eye-balls, unspeculatingly stared from its glassy cabinet.
The Duchess of Tyrconnel warmly embraced with tender and intense affection her old, her once young, her still kind-hearted friend, while their tears, united, trickled down in comminglement on the cheeks of each beloved friend; while Adelaide, whose heart was ever responsive to every impulse of affection or affliction, wept a flood of tears. This transport of joy and tears having passed the Duchess d'Aremberg strongly pressed, with the kindest and most affectionate solicitation, that her early friend and her goddaughter should, during their sojourn at Brussels, make the palace d'Aremberg their home, where they would be as free from restraint as if the residence were their own. But the Duchess of Tyrconnel declined in terms of the deepest gratitude, at the same time in the tone of firm determination. Her Grace said that they should be often together, and that every day, if possible, during her stay, accompanied by Adelaide, they would have the pleasure of passing a large portion of their time with the Duchess d'Aremberg.
Upon being made acquainted that the duchess had taken a house in the Rue Ducale, and that the Ladies Letitia and Lucy, and Sir Patricius Placebo, had accompanied her in her journey, matters were so far compromised by an invitation being made and accepted of, that on that same day the entire party should dine within the hospitable walls of the palace d'Aremberg.