If I could only understand, I could bear it better. "Ha!" says Marguerite, with a rather pitying smile. "If my Damoiselle could but know every thing, she would be content not to know more!" Well! I suppose I am unreasonable. Yet it will be such a relief when the worst is over. But how can I wish the worst to come? *CHAPTER XIV.* _*SYBIL’S CHOICE*_*.* "’Gifts!’ cried the friend. He took: and, holding it High towards the heavens, as though to meet his star, Exclaimed,—’This, too, I owe to thee, Giafàr!’" LEIGH HUNT. It came at last—neither sooner for my dreading it, nor later for my wishing it—Holy Cross Day, the coronation morning. Guy and I reached the Holy City the night before, and took up our quarters with the holy Patriarch and his Lady Irene. We were just opposite the Palace. We could see lights flashing through the loop-holes, and now and then a shadow pass behind them. It was hard to know that that house held all that we loved, and we were the only ones that dared not enter it. The Patriarch was most disagreeably loquacious. He told us every thing. He might have been cooking the banquet and broidering the robes, for all the minute details he seemed to know. The Queen, he told us, was to be arrayed in golden baudekyn, and the Lady Isabel in rose and silver. Both the Princesses would be present, attired in gold and blue. Poor little Agnes and Helena! How little they would understand of their mother’s actions! As little, perhaps, as any of us could understand of God’s dealings in this matter! The officers of state were to surround the throne, which was to be placed on the highest step of the choir; the nobles of the Council were to stand, in order according to the date of their creation, round the nave below. Lady Irene was as silent as her lord was talkative. But at night, when she brought me up to the chamber she had prepared for me, she told me the one thing I did care to know. A place had been specially reserved for me, in the nave, immediately behind Guy; and the Lady Irene’s own place was next to me. "I am obliged to the Master of the Ceremonies," said I: for that was just where I wished to be. "Nay," quietly said Lady Irene, as she took up her lamp; "the Damoiselle is obliged to the Lady Sybil." Had Sybil thought of my fancy? What a strange compound she was!—attending to one’s insignificant likings, yet crushing one’s very heart to dust!