Once more the careless light came back to the queen’s face; and throwing off the thoughtfulness which had made her appear ten years older, she turned and entered the cottage. “Madame, your highness, can my companion come in also?” Marie Antoinette frowned and regretted the step she had taken. She was evidently annoyed by this constant appeal to her royalty. “Ah! your daughter. Yes, yes, let her come in. She, too, may be able to teach us something.” Marguerite, in a wondering way, knew that she was in the presence of the queen. She would have spoken, but the words died on her lips, for the frank, smiling woman who met them so cordially, had been in an instant transformed into a creature of evident power; her frown was ominous as her smile was bright; but Marie Antoinette was a creature of wonderful variability, and almost on the instant took up her _role_ of dairy-maid. CHAPTER XX. ROYAL MILKMAIDS. Marguerite followed Dame Tillery into the cottage. A confused sound of voices, and low bursts of laughter met them at the threshold, and with this was mingled the tinkling sound of metal-pans jarring against each other, and the patter of high-heeled shoes upon the wooden door of a room beyond. “Put aside your hood and shawl, dame,” said the queen; “you are wanted at once.” Dame Tillery took off her outer garments, and drawing an apron of white linen from her pocket, tied it around her stout waist with the air of a woman about to perform some important duty, then she entered the room which seemed so full of merriment, as if it had been her own parlor in The Swan Hotel. The room was a singular one; the floor was of dark walnut, and entirely uncarpeted. Along one end ran a range of shelves, cut from thin slabs of marble, on which pans, some silver, some of white porcelain, were arranged in rows. These pans were full of milk, on which the cream was mantling richly. Pails of almost snow-white wood, hooped and mounted with silver, hung on brackets against the opposite wall. At a long, marble table, which occupied the center of the room, stood two or three pans of milk, with a long, porcelain dish half full of thick cream. Two or three ladies were by the table busy at work, but laughing, chatting, and making merry over their labor, as if they had been accustomed to it all their lives. One, a little, plump woman, with blue eyes, and a round, pleasant face, had rolled her sleeves to the elbows, and drawn the skirt of her dress through the pocket-holes, while she skimmed the cream from one of the pans, and dropped it into the long, porcelain dish preparatory for churning. A fair young girl, habited in like rustic fashion, but with a good deal of blue in her dress, was washing milk-pans at a marble sink in one corner of the room; while a piquant little lady, with red ribbons in her cap, stood ready with a long, white towel, with which she polished the pans into brightness.