‘That would not be to the purpose, my dear child: the general would know my handwriting. I will push a table up to you; no one will disturb us now till your substitute comes.’ She carried a light table, furnished with inkstand and _papetière_ to the side of the bed, and made an aperture in the curtains, whence emerged the rosy bright-eyed face of a girl‒who certainly did not look the invalid she otherwise appeared to be‒and a white hand with an aristocratic network of blue veins. ‘Will that do, mamma?’ she asked, after covering a page with writing equally elegant and difficult to read. ‘Have I apologised and stated my reasons for going, eloquently enough? Oh, how I hope that I shall some day be a queen in my own capital, and that you and papa will come and live there!’ The mamma sighed, as swift imagination presented to her mind all the obstacles to so glorious a consummation; but she expressed herself well satisfied with the letter, which she placed on the toilet table. ‘I shall leave you now,’ she said; ‘you will find me in my room when you wish to bid me farewell.’ She spoke with a certain stately sadness as she left the apartment. The next person who entered it was the Comtesse de Cernes’s sister in her paletot, with a hood drawn forward over her face. She only said: ‘_Que votre Altesse me pardonne!_’ (Pardon me, your Highness.) Instantly the curtains divided once more, and the whole radiant vision of the mysterious invalid, clad in a dressing-gown richly trimmed with French lace, and shewing a face sparkling with animation, sprang forth laughing: ‘You are the substitute?’ ‘Yes, your Highness!’ ‘I am sure I thank you very heartily, as well as Madame Misset and the Chevalier Wogan, and all the kind and loyal friends who are taking so much trouble for my consort and for me. The Archduchess will take good care of you, Jannetton.’ Jannetton again shewed her teeth in a courtly smile as she courtesied deeply. She was already persuaded that she would be well cared for, in reward for the mysterious services she had come to render the captive lady. She disencumbered herself of her paletot, and looked amazingly like a very neat French waiting-maid until she had bedizened herself in the young lady’s beautifully worked dressing-gown. Then she speedily disappeared behind the curtains of the bed; while the invalid, wrapping herself in the paletot, rushed into the next room to embrace with tears and smiles her anxious mamma, who said but little, and was now only eager to hurry her away. There too she took possession of her page, and a small box which was to accompany her flight down the dark staircases. ‘Your Highness will find all safe,’ said the solemn page, who was careful to suppress outer signs of his innate roguishness in the presence of his mistresses. ‘The sentinel will not know me?’ said the young lady.