Philip was too busy for weeks in the delights of his honeymoon to write to his confidante the nun, presumably also because the sins he so deeply deplored, and so constantly repeated, did not tempt him during the first weeks of his married life. But when, on the 17th November, he found time to write, he expresses the utmost satisfaction at his bride. ‘I confess to you,’ he says, ‘that I know not how I can thank our Lord sufficiently for the mercy he has shown to me in giving me such a companion; for all the qualities I have hitherto recognised in my niece are great, and I find myself exceedingly content, and full of a desire to prove myself not ungrateful for so singular a mercy by changing my mode of life and submitting myself in all things to His will.’[239] The nun in answer to this urged the King to live well in his new condition, ‘trying earnestly that the Queen shall have all your attention and regard, instead of your Majesty casting your eyes on other objects strange and curious.’ All Spain, the nun continues, is yearning for an heir, and her own prayers are ceaseless to that end. Philip was full of good resolves. He would never go astray again; but, though he was as anxious for a son as his people were, he was in doubt yet as to his new wife’s having arrived at sufficient maturity to have children: ‘although others of her age, which is fifteen years, can do so. But it is easy for our Lord to remedy this, and I hope in His mercy that He will do it.’[240] In the meanwhile, the depositary of all these hopes, Mariana, was diverting herself as best she could in girlish romps with her stepdaughter of ten, who seems to have been her constant companion. Philip, in writing of them, generally speaks of them as ‘the girls,’ and frequently mentions Mariana’s joy at shows and gaiety. Once more the Buen Retiro rang with light laughter. Comedies and masquerades were again the constant diversion of the Court, though pestilence was scourging the land, Catalonia and Portugal defied the arms of Spain, and the French in Flanders still held the armies of Philip at bay. Pleasure, the joy of living, absorbed the young Queen’s attention; and after the first few months of marriage, Philip usually refers to her somewhat wearily, and only with reference to her enjoyments or to his hopes of progeny. After one disappointment a child was born in July 1651, a girl, who was christened with the usual unrestrained splendour by the name of Maria Margaret.[241] Again high hopes were entertained in due time, only to be disappointed, and Mariana fell into melancholy; for Philip had relapsed into his bad habits again, notwithstanding his vows and resolves, and the delay in the coming of a son increased his coldness towards his wife. A frenzied round of gaiety at the Buen Retiro did something to arouse the Queen out of her depression,[242] but Philip had now but little pleasure in his old love for glittering shows; for the