bride, and to hint that it was not necessary to wait for the Queen-Mother's recovery. Henrietta, the sport of others less innocent than herself, knelt to receive her mother's last blessing. That lady, touched by some real maternal feeling, bade her a tender farewell, pressing into her hand a letter which the girl found, when she came to read it, to be full of the most admirable sentiments of piety and virtue and of excellent advice as to her conduct in the married state. She probably knew Mary de' Medici too well to attribute this composition to her, and perhaps no one attempted to disguise the fact that its author was the pious Father Bérulle who was going with her to England in the capacity of confessor.[25] Through Abbeville, with its soaring cathedral, through picturesque Montreuil, Henrietta came to Boulogne, whence she was to cross to England, as the plague was reigning at Calais. Though it was June, the weather was wild and stormy, and a further delay was inevitable. Buckingham, forgetful of all propriety, careless of the trust confided to him by his friend and King, took advantage of this delay to steal back, on a frivolous pretext, to Amiens, and to Anne. His audacity little availed him. After one brief agitated interview he had to tear himself from his idol, whom he never saw again. During the waiting time at Boulogne, Henrietta made acquaintance with some of her new subjects who had crossed the Channel to meet her, and who were greatly disappointed when they found her without her mother and sister-in-law, for, as one of them wrote, they had looked forward to seeing beauty not only in the future tense, but in the present and the preterperfect as well.[26] Buckingham, who up till now had been too occupied with Anne to pay much attention to the bride, and who was too much of a man of the world to care for the "future tense" of beauty, now, it seems, bethought him of winning the favour of the Queen of England. Certainly he secured a flattering reception for his mother, the Countess of Buckingham, who improved the occasion of her visit to France by reconciling herself to the Church of Rome. In later days Henrietta did not like the lady, but at this first introduction she received her "with strange courtesy and favour."[27] Nor was she alone in her kindness. Gaston of Orleans, who, in his mother's enforced detention at Amiens, had adhered to his plan of escorting his sister to the coast, paid the English lady the unusual compliment of visiting her, and the haughty and high-born Madame de Chevreuse actually waived her right of precedence in favour of the Buckinghams, whose family was of yesterday. It need hardly be said that such courtesy was greatly relished by the English visitors, who found no drawback to the happy intercourse with their new friends except in the Countess' ignorance of the French tongue. But even this difficulty was got over by the presence at Boulogne of Sir Tobie Matthew, who, though the son