“Way! Make way for the Marchioness of Morella!” Now the crowd of spectators separated, and Margaret, turning to look down the long hall, saw a procession advancing up the lane between them, some clad in armour and some in white Moorish robes blazoned with the scarlet eagle, the cognisance of Morella. In the midst of them, her train supported by two Moorish women, walked a tall and beautiful lady, a coronet upon her brow, her fair hair outspread, a purple cloak hanging from her shoulders, half hiding that same splendid robe sewn with pearls which had been Morella’s gift to Margaret, and about her white bosom the chain of pearls which he had presented to Betty in compensation for her injuries. Margaret stared and stared again, and her father at her side murmured: “It is our Betty! Truly fine feathers make fine birds.” Yes, Betty it was without a doubt, though, remembering her in her humble woollen dress at the old house in Holborn, it was hard to recognise the poor companion in this proud and magnificent lady, who looked as though all her life she had trodden the marble floors of courts, and consorted with nobles and with queens. Up the great hall she came, stately, imperturbable, looking neither to the right nor to the left, taking no note of the whisperings about her, no, nor even of Morella or of Margaret, till she reached the open space in front of the bar where Peter and his guards, gazing with all their eyes, hastened to make place for her. There she curtseyed thrice, twice to the queen, and once to the king, her consort; then, turning, bowed to the marquis, who fixed his eyes upon the ground and took no note, bowed to Castell and Peter, and lastly, advancing to Margaret, gave her her cheek to kiss. This Margaret did with becoming humility, whispering in her ear: “How fares your Grace?” “Better than you would in my shoes,” whispered Betty back with ever so slight a trembling of her left eyelid; while Margaret heard the king mutter to the queen: “A fine peacock of a woman. Look at her figure and those big eyes. Morella must be hard to please.” “Perhaps he prefers swans to peacocks,” answered the queen in the same voice with a glance at Margaret, whose quieter and more refined beauty seemed to gain by contrast with that of her nobly built and dazzling-skinned cousin. Then she motioned to Betty to take the seat prepared for her, which she did, with her suite standing behind her and an interpreter at her side. “I am somewhat bewildered,” said the king, glancing from Morella to Betty and from Margaret to Peter, for evidently the humour of the situation did not escape him. “What is the exact case that we have to try?” Then one of the legal assessors, or alcaldes, rose and said that the matter before their Majesties was a charge against the Englishman at the bar of killing a certain soldier of the Holy Hermandad, but that there seemed to be other matters mixed up with it.