Feeling her weakness, and resolute against temptation, the good woman was constantly appeasing her desire to talk, by passing in and out of the room in which Marguerite sat, where she could indulge in comments on her high good fortune with safety. “To think of it,” she would say over and over again. “Only yesterday you and I were strangers, and now we have been at court together, saved the very life of the queen, to say nothing of teaching her how to make butter, and have a right to enter the palace and be thanked graciously with the highest of the land. While you sprang forward and flung yourself before the queen, I kept the animal I was milking from plunging at her, by throwing myself on the earth under her very feet. She had not the power to leap over me; besides, the pail and stool got under her feet and tamed her down; but for that there is no knowing what sorrow might have fallen on the nation. In a great event like this it is an honor to have acted the principal part; I feel it so—I feel it so. That idea it was what made me so patient while I lay before the cow, a bulwark between her and the queen; but you did your part, I must confess that, and shall say as much to her majesty.” Five or six times the proud dame visited Marguerite in her chamber to say this; and for half an hour together she would sit by the window with a hand on each knee, looking radiant as a full moon, while she described the scene in the park, in which her own chivalrous action became more and more prominent. While the good woman was solacing her vanity after this fashion, a young man passed the house more than once, and looked up to the window where Marguerite and her friend were sitting. Dame Tillery saw him, bustled up from the chair, and threw the window open. “Monsieur! Monsieur! are you looking for me? Is the queen getting impatient. Don’t be bashful, but come up and tell me all about it.” The young man’s face brightened, he lifted his hat, smiled pleasantly, and came into the house. Marguerite heard his light step on the stairs, and the next minute saw him standing within the door, his hat in one hand, his coat glittering with embroidery, and a profusion of gossamer lace floating over his bosom. Dame Tillery lifted herself from the chair, which creaked under her weight, and stood up to receive her courtly guest. Marguerite followed her example, and shrinking behind her portly figure, stood, blushing and confused, while the young man’s eyes were fixed upon her. She remembered him well. He was the young man who had made such awkward attempts to cut grass with a sickle the day before. He had sprung to her relief when she and the queen were clinging together in mutual terror, while Monsieur Jacques was conquering the vicious beast which had frightened them so.