Now the duke of Orleans had a son, Charles, three years younger than the 'queen of England,' and it was his cherished plan to marry him to his niece. The two cousins had much in common; they both loved music, and old romances, and songs, and Charles had already begun to write some of those poems that sound sweet in our ears to-day. Of course the boy was too young for a marriage to be spoken of at present, but after a while it became understood that the ceremony of betrothal would shortly take place. Isabel had not given her consent (in those times that counted for little) without a long struggle. The memory of Richard was still green in her heart, but she was alone in the world. Nobody wanted her except her uncle and aunt, and her friend Charles. Oh yes! and one other, but she would not think of him. Charles was her friend, and in a way she loved him; so, to his great joy, she promised to be his wife, and when she burst into tears during the magnificent ceremony of betrothal he imagined that she was tired with all the feasting, and he led her away to rest and read her the little song he had written all about themselves. A year after the betrothal the duke of Orleans was stabbed by the duke of Burgundy in the streets of Paris. No notice was taken of the murder, so Isabel and her mother-in-law dressed themselves in deep mourning and, mounting in front of the carriage, which was drawn by white horses with black housings, they drove weeping to the Hôtel de St. Pol, where the king was, followed by a long train of servants and attendants. But Charles was in no state to settle these questions, for any excitement only brought on a paroxysm. The duke's murder remained unavenged, and a year afterwards his widow died, deeply mourned by her son and by Isabel, to whom in the last years she had been a true mother.