At this time the news that reached The Hague was of the most astonishing and unwelcome to the Princess, and this was the manner of her receiving it, one day, very cold, in late January. She was riding in her chariot in the Voorhout, reflecting on this extraordinary revolution in her native country, and thinking of her father (who was now fled to France), when she was accosted by M. D’Avaux, who still remained at The Hague. The Princess was much surprised by this, and was giving a mere formal salute, when M. D’Avaux, with his hat clasped to his bosom, galloped up to her open chariot in such a manner that she could do nothing but desire it to stop. "Ah, Madam," said he, smiling, and very courteous, "am I to condole with the daughter of King James or congratulate the wife of the Prince of Orange?" She looked at him, very pale, but with a great majesty. "You are to respect a woman in an extraordinary and sad situation, Monsieur," she answered gravely. "Extraordinary indeed, Your Highness," said M. D’Avaux. "But scarcely sad to you, I think, who are like to be Queen." It flashed through Mary’s mind how near to war they must be with France before he could venture to speak so. She answered instantly— "I take no public reprimand from the Ambassador of France, Monsieur." M. D’Avaux bowed. "More a congratulation, Highness, to the future sovereign of England." Her look of amaze was not to be concealed. His keen eyes, that never left her face, remarked it. "Ah, Your Highness hath not heard the last news from England?" he asked quietly. "News from England!" repeated Mary, "I hear nothing else——" "Then you will have heard that the Convention is for making you Queen, Madam," he answered, "which perhaps is not quite the consummation His Highness desired." Mary gazed at him a second, then made a motion with her gloved hand to the coachman. "It is cold to keep the horses waiting," she said, and so drove on. Cold indeed, and the snow beginning to fall in heavy flakes across the straight fronts of the noble houses in the Voorhout; the people of quality gathered there on horseback and on foot began to scatter before the chilly wind and slow darkness. The Princess shuddered inside her fur coat, and drove back to the ’huis ten bosch.’ As she passed down the gaunt avenues of bare trees overshadowing frozen water and frozen ground, showing between their dark trunks glimpses of a pale February sunset fast being blotted out by the thick snow clouds, she felt to her very heart the awful desolation of approaching change, the wild regret for a happy period closed, the unnameable loneliness which assailed her when she considered how she was being caught up and hurried into a whirl of events foreign and distasteful.