Mademoiselle stood speechless; but madame her sister-in-law answered for her. "Doubtless she was afraid that your Majesty would think her careless," she answered. "I did not ask you!" the Queen rejoined. She spoke harshly and suspiciously, looking from the ring to the trembling girl. The silence was such that the chatter of the pages in the anteroom could be heard. Still Mademoiselle stood dumb and confounded. "Well, what is the mystery?" the Queen said, looking round with a little wonder. "What is the matter? It IS the ring. Why do you not own it?" "Perhaps mademoiselle is wondering where are the other things she left with it!" Bassompierre said in a silky tone. "The things she left at Parlot the verderer's, when she dropped the ring. But she may free her mind; I have them here." "What do you mean?" the Queen said. "What things, monsieur? What has the girl been doing?" "Only what many have done before her," Bassompierre answered, bowing to his unfortunate victim, who seemed to be paralysed by terror: "masquerading in other people's clothes. I propose, madame, that, for punishment, you order her to dress in them, that we may see what her taste is." "I do not understand?" the Queen said. "Your Majesty will, if Mademoiselle Paleotti will consent to humour us." At that the girl uttered a cry, and looked round the circle as if for a way of escape; but a Court is a cruel place, in which the ugly or helpless find scant pity. A dozen voices begged the Queen to insist; and, amid laughter and loud jests, Bassompierre hastened to the door, and returned with an armful of women's gear, surmounted by a wig and a feathered hat. "If the Queen will command mademoiselle to retire and put these on," he said, "I will undertake to show her something that will please her." "Go!" said the Queen. But the girl had flung herself on her knees before her, and, clinging to her skirts, burst, into a flood of tears and prayers; while her sister-in-law stepped forward as if to second her, and cried out, in great excitement, that her Majesty would not be so cruel as to-- "Hoity, toity!" said the Queen, cutting her short, very grimly. "What is all this? I tell the girl to put on a masquerade--which it seems that she has been keeping at some cottage--and you talk as if I were cutting off her head! It seems to me that she escapes very lightly! Go! go! and see, you, that you are arrayed in five minutes, or I will deal with you!" "Perhaps Mademoiselle de la Force will go with her, and see that nothing is omitted," Bassompierre said with malice. The laughter and applause with which this proposal was received took me by surprise; but later I learned that the two young women were rivals. "Yes, yes," the Queen said. "Go, mademoiselle, and see that she does not keep us waiting."