Our anxieties are all turned to rejoicing at once. Guy and Amaury returned last night, having concluded a six months’ truce with Saladin: and Eschine had the pleasure—I am sure she felt it a very great one—when Amaury entered her chamber, of placing in his arms the boy for whom he had so fervently longed, who was born three days before they came back. Little Hugues—Amaury says that must be his name—seems as fine a child as Héloïse, and as likely to live. Amaury was about as pleased as it is in his nature to be; but he always seems to have his eyes fixed on the wormwood of life rather than the honey. "Thou hast shown some sense at last!" he said; and Eschine received this very doubtful commendation as if it had been the most delightful compliment. Then Amaury turned round, and snapped at me, because I could not help laughing at his absurdity. I asked Marguerite this evening what she thought was her chief fault. "Ha!—the good God knows," she said. "It is very difficult to tell which of one’s faults is the worst." "But what dost thou think?" said I. "Well," she answered, "I think that my chief fault is—with all deference—the same as that of my Damoiselle: and that is pride. Only that we are proud of different things." "And of what art thou proud, Margot?" asked I laughingly, but rather struck to find that she had hit on the same failing (in me) as Lady Judith. "Ha! My Damoiselle may well ask. And I cannot tell her. What is or has an old villein woman, ignorant and foolish, to provoke pride? I only know it is there. It does not fasten on one thing more than another, but there it is. And pride is a very subtle sin, if it please my Damoiselle. If I had nothing in the world to be proud of but that I was the ugliest woman in it, I believe I could be proud of that." I laughed. "Well, and wherein lies my pride, Margot?" said I, wishful to see whether she altogether agreed with Lady Judith. "Can I see into the inmost heart of my Damoiselle? It is like a shut-up coffer, this human heart. I can only look on the outside, I. But on the outside, I see two things. My Damoiselle is noble, and she is clever. And she knows both." "Which is the worse, Margot?" "Ha! Both are bad enough, to make pride. But this I think: that even a king can never fancy himself so noble as the good God; yet a good many of us think ourselves quite as wise." "O Margot!—who could think that?" "Does my Damoiselle herself never think that she could arrange matters better than the good God is ordering them? What is that, but to say in our hearts, ’I am the wiser’?" It is very queer, how Lady Judith and Marguerite always do think alike. "Margot, who wouldst thou say was the holiest woman in this house?" The answer was unhesitating. "I do not know; I can only guess. But if my Damoiselle wishes me to guess—the noble Lady Judith, and Dame Eschine." How very odd! "When I asked thee once before, Margot, thou didst not mention Eschine at all."