She was about to take one of the jewels from her finger, but with an impulse he could not control, the page cried out, “Not that; not that, your highness, it is of value; but that serpent with the dull-green beetle in its coil. Oh! I pray you, let me have that as a token!” Marie Antoinette drew the scarabee half off her finger, then thrust it back, remembering how little she knew of the person before her. “No,” she murmured, “this is a talisman;” and with a sudden gesture of dismissal, she walked toward Madame Campan, leaving the page standing there, trembling under what might have seemed a trivial disappointment. CHAPTER XLVI. WAITING FOR THE MORNING. All night long Marguerite Gosner lay by her mother’s side, with that precious paper folded close to her heart. She did not sleep, though the last two days had been full of excitement and fatigue; but her wild, bright eyes were wide open, looking through the darkness, and picturing there a scene of exceeding joy that would come to them upon the morrow. How often during that night did she steal her hand under the pillow, and draw forth the ivory crucifix hidden there, that her lips, all quivering with thankfulness, might kiss it in blessing of the Holy Mother for the great happiness that filled her heart. Yet all this was done so quietly that the woman by her side thought the girl asleep, and scarcely dared to draw an irregular breath lest she might disturb her. Thus the morning found both mother and child so restless with happiness, that it amounted almost to pain. “What if they would not give him up,” thought the poor woman, who had been so often thrust back from her hope, that nothing good ever seemed quite sure to her; “or he may be taken suddenly ill and unable to move. The king might be persuaded to retract his mercy—she had heard of such things.” Thus the poor woman, who had been so long inured to suffering that she did not know how to be happy, tormented herself through that long, long night; but when the day broke and Marguerite’s eyes looked into hers all this changed. Her heart leaped toward the hope held out to it. She reached forth her arms, and drawing the young girl to her bosom with an intensity of affection never known to her before, cried out,