Queen Isabella was seated in her former apartment in the castle of Valence describing to her daughter the person of the young King of England and his noble brother the Prince Richard, and painting to the imagination of the child the charms of the infant Princess Isabella, when the horn of the warder rang out shrill and clear on the evening air. The window of the turret commanded the view of the drawbridge. From that window where, eighteen years before, Isabella had watched with delight for the return of her gay knightly lover, she now beheld with palpitating heart the advance of a jaded, weary troop, at whose head rode one whose proud crest drooped as though the inspiration of hope had ceased to animate the warrior-frame, and the heart bereft of the blissful fervor of love no longer anticipated the sweet guerdon of his lady's smile. A tide of recollections swept over her spirit; dizzy and faint she sank upon a seat in the embrasure of the window, and veiled her agitation in the curtaining drapery. She heard his tread upon the stair, no longer the elastic step that she had been wont to welcome with the sportive gaiety of a heart free from care; the door was thrown open, her daughter with bounding footstep so like her own in former days, flew to meet him as he entered. She saw the childish fingers unlace the helmet, unbind the gorget, unbelt the sword, and lay aside the armor. The form of the warrior was slightly bent, there were furrows upon the sunburnt cheek, deep lines upon the noble brow, and threads of silver among his dark locks. A heavy sigh was the first salutation of his little bride. He drew the fair girl to him and pressed his lip upon her cheek, but the anxious observer saw that the look and the smile were the expression rather of paternal regard than of lover like fondness; they were not such as had lighted up his countenance and kindled in his eyes when with gleesome alacrity she had rendered him the same gentle service. Her agitation subsided, and when the little Joanna took the hand of the Count la Marche, and led him forward to present him to her mother, she received his embarrassed greeting with the stately courtesy of a queen and the dignity of a woman. The marvellous beauty that won for Isabella the appellation of the "Helen of the middle ages" soon eclipsed the infant graces of the princess, and reinstated her in the heart once all her own. We accordingly find in the records of the year 1220, that "Isabella, Queen Dowager of England, having before crossed the seas, took to her husband her former spouse, the Count of Marche, in France, without leave of the king, her son, or his council."