Above the yellow brocade chair where she now sat was a shelf laden with vases and figures of extraordinary shapes and violent colours. Mary loved them all; she looked up at them with a little smile, then took up the book from which she had been reading to her ladies, but dropped it on to her lap, and sat with an air of lassitude, gazing into the flames. "The truth is," she said, "I have a great headache, and have had one this three days past." "It is the wind," answered Lady Nottingham. Mary shivered. "I have taken cold, I think," she remarked. She laughed; she was more than usual gay. She was expecting the King in a few days, and, for the moment, the troubles and difficulties had a little cleared from his path. For the first time since the war began the last campaign had decided in favour of the allies; the weight of England was beginning to tell in the balance. Mary could not forget that; it coloured her days with pleasure. "I think the ball will be popular," she continued irrelevantly; "every one seemeth very pleased——" "What is the date, Madam?" asked Lady Temple. "The twenty-eighth—about a week from now," answered Mary. "I am to have a new dress!" She laughed again; she seemed, for her, to be very excited. "I shall put it on presently, and you must judge of it." She leant back in her chair, and was suddenly silent. The short day was darkening; sullen crimson, presaging rain, burnt fitfully in the west, and a gloomy brightness reflected through the windows of the great gallery, and struck changeful colour from the mother-of-pearl figures on the black china screens. Mary coughed and shivered. She turned to Madame Nienhuys. "When is your cousin coming to Court?" she asked. "Not yet, Madam. I had a letter from The Hague yesterday from her mother saying she would send her in the spring." "Why not sooner?" asked the Queen. "She saith she is frightened by the reports of the plague in London." "They say it is worse this year," assented Mary. "And the smallpox." "And the smallpox, Madam. But it is foolish of my cousin to be so timid." "Yes," said Mary gravely; "since timidity will save no one. God doth His will, despite our fears." She opened the work-table beside her and took out a chair-cover she was working with a design of birds and flowers on a black ground. She made a languid attempt to thread the needle, then dropped the sewing as she had the book. "I will try that gown on," she said, "and then we will make tea in the little antechamber—this is so large." The ladies rose with a pretty rustle of skirts, folded up their work, and followed Mary through Sir Christopher’s noble apartments to her chamber, which was very exactly furnished but cold. On the canopied bed of blue and yellow damask lay the Queen’s new gown, and two sewing-girls sat on low stools and stitched the lace into the sleeves. At Mary’s approach they rose silently.