I should like to know, if I could find out, what it is that makes Alix have such a fancy for Lady Isabeau de Montbeillard. I think she is just abominable. She finishes off every sentence with a little crackling laugh, which it drives me wild to hear. It makes no difference what it is about. Whether it be, "Dear Damoiselle, how kind you are!" or "Do you not think my lord looks but poorly?" they all end up with "Ha, ha, ha!" Sometimes I feel as though I could shake her like Lovel does the rats. If Lady Isabeau were like Alix in her ways, I would understand it better; but they are totally unlike, and yet they seem to have a fancy for each other. As for the Baron, I don’t care a bit about him any way. He is like Umberge in that respect—there is nothing in him either to like or dislike. And if there can be still less of anything than in him, I think it is in his brother, Messire Raymond, who sits with his mouth a little open, staring at one as if one were a curiosity in a show. Alix told me this morning that I was too censorious. I am afraid that last sentence looks rather like it. Perhaps I had better stop. The Baron and his lady went with us to the hawking, and so did Messire Raymond; but he never caught so much as a sparrow. Then, after we came back, I had to try on my new dress, which Marguerite had just finished. It really is a beauty. The under-tunic is of crimson velvet, the super-tunic of blue samite embroidered in silver; the mantle of reddish tawny, with a rich border of gold. I shall wear my blue kerchief with it, which Monseigneur gave me last New Year’s Day, and my golden girdle studded with sapphires. The sleeves are the narrowest I have yet had, for the Lady de Montbeillard told Alix that last time she was at the Court, the sleeves were much tighter at the wrist than they used to be, and she thinks, in another twenty years or so, the pocketing sleeve[#] may be quite out of fashion. It would be odd if sleeves were to be made the same width all the way down. But the Lady de Montbeillard saw Queen Marguerite[#] when she was at Poictiers, and she says that the Queen wore a tunic of the most beautiful pale green, and her sleeves were the closest worn by any lady there. [#] One of the most uncomely and inconvenient vagaries of fashion. The sleeve was moderately tight from shoulder to elbow, and just below the elbow it went off in a wide pendant sweep, reaching almost to the knee. The pendant part was used as a pocket. [#] Daughter of Louis VII., King of France, and Constança of Castilla: wife of Henry, eldest son of Henry II. of England. Her husband was crowned during his father’s life, and by our mediæval chroniclers is always styled Henry the Third.