The princess, Agnes, Ann, and Reginald, were the principal actors in that scene. The two girls, muffled in their soft furs, with their petticoats above their ankles, showing their pretty feet, were a sight to rejoice the heart, as the sight of all young things must be. The winter sunshine glinted in Agnes's bright hair, and lit up her dark eyes with the happiest, softest merriment.
"I never saw such a pretty creature!" said Reginald to Ann, when she had left them after the day's sport.
"Take care. You will be losing your heart to her!" said Ann, laughing.
"I have done that long ago," he answered. "The first time she looked at me she took my heart away with her. If I had not been a king's man before, she would have made me one."
"She is but twelve years old," said Ann, laughing; "you will have to wait long for her, Reginald."
"And the time will seem but short," he answered, "if I may but see her once and again. Do you know her name, Ann?"
"Agnes, I have heard; nothing more," she answered. "But that young man, Delarry, said casually that she had been the darling of the queen-mother and the princess ever since she was a baby. Nobody knows aught about her save the queen and Mistress Patience, who carried her over to France when she was almost in swaddling clothes."
"I was sure of it," said Reginald. "She is a child of one of the great old families; she looks it, my little sweetheart!" And from that time forth Reginald hovered round Agnes, and people laughed at her and called him her knight, and she was mighty pleased and made no little boast of her handsome cavalier.
It was all so open, so fresh, this budding love; without depth or passion, it had sprung up like the flowers, and like them was pure and serene. There was no past, no future for those young creatures; they lived just for the hour, as with flying feet they skimmed the ice, the fresh, sharp air cutting their faces. The joy of life was with them and upon them as it never would be again. They did not recognize how with each fleeting moment a joy-note sounded and died away. In after-years they would listen for the echo with that intense longing of hearts which have known unalloyed happiness; would they hear it again, or would it go from them for ever, with the flitting moments? Blessed are those who like them have heard it, whose lips have uttered the words, "I am so happy, so happy!"
They came like a song of joy to Agnes's lips as she went hither and thither with Reginald beside her. He, bending towards her, said with a note of triumph in his voice: