As for Agnes, she tried to put care on one side, though she knew that Henrietta's marriage loomed not far distant; sometimes she wondered what was to become of her when it was accomplished. Once or twice she approached Patience on the subject, but she frowned and answered her:
"Do not trouble, child. Think ye that you are of less account than the sparrows on the house-tops or the lilies in the field?" And she would hurry away, leaving Agnes with her own thoughts and her own fears.
No wonder if on the child's face there came a serious expression, a certain sadness, which is often to be seen on the faces of children who are motherless and fatherless, a sort of yearning for something, they know not what, that has been denied to them.
And yet Agnes was not unhappy. Mistress Newbolt had refused at first to come up to London, but the colonel had insisted she should do so.
"It is injuring Ann's prospects," he said, "and I cannot entertain guests in a house where there is no mistress." Therefore she had been obliged to yield, but she did so only in so far that she ruled the servants and saw that there was no wilful waste. For herself she remained in her own apartments, and would not join in the entertainments which her husband delighted in, neither would she permit Ann to do so.
Thus it came to pass that Agnes and Ann drew closer and closer one to the other. Not a day passed but they saw one another. Agnes delighted to go to their house, and, strange to tell, Mistress Newbolt took a vast liking to her. She would let her follow her into her store closet; she would let her watch her make the dainty comfits for which she was renowned; and she would send her away with all manner of good things piled in a little basket which she kept for that purpose. But if she did her these kindnesses, she insisted that every time she came to see her she should go with her to her closet, and there she would read to her some portion of the Bible and would pray with her. Agnes conformed meekly to her desires. She looked upon her as a saint, and though she was stern and cold, and never caressed her, there was a certain motherliness about her which appealed to the child's heart.
So the month of June came, and the Princess Henrietta was carried over to France to meet the saddest fate that can befall any woman, namely to marry a bad man. Agnes thought her heart would break when she bade her and the queen adieu. Indeed, she fell quite sick with sorrow, lay on her bed, turned her face to the wall, and would not be comforted.
CHAPTER VI
A First Parting
Queen Henrietta had been loath to part from Agnes, and she would have kept the child about her person had it been possible for her to do so, and had Agnes been a few years older; but to take a child just budding into girlhood alone, without any other companion, or without any definite object in view, to the French court seemed folly.