that of the queen for rescuing a life so dear to him at the peril of their own. But all this was later, and in 1680 the Queen of Spain had to mount as best she could from her coach. [Illustration: Two Spanish gentlemen rescue the Queen] On the evenings on which they did not go to the theatre she and the king played at ombre together; but the Spanish cards were almost as thin as paper, and were painted quite differently from the French, and she had to learn them all over again. On the days that they did not hunt the king used often to take her to visit some of the convents, which were numerous in Spain; but this she disliked more than anything. The nuns were so stiff and so silent, and she grew so weary of putting questions to them, to which they only answered 'Yes' or 'No.' Luckily the king always took two of his dwarfs with him, and _they_ chattered without fear of anybody; but, even so, the queen was thankful when she was told that lunch was ready. A roast chicken was always provided for her, and the king felt rather vexed with her for eating so much and not being content with the light cakes and fruit that satisfied him. Poor Marie Louise! as time went on, and the king's health grew weaker and her pleasures fewer, she became fonder and fonder of sweet things—'dulces' as they were called—and was always sucking lozenges of some sort while she played with her dogs, till at length she ended by losing her figure, though she never lost her beauty. However, now she was only just married, and did not know the ten weary years that stretched in front of her before she died, for although the king adored her, he very seldom allowed her to influence his will or to change any of the iron rules of custom. She was, indeed, permitted to have an occasional interview with Madame d'Aulnoy, who was at that time living in Madrid, and has left a most interesting account of all she saw there. On the first visit she paid she found Marie Louise in a room covered with mirrors, seated, in a beautiful dress of pink velvet and silver, close to the window, which was covered by a gilded lattice and blue silk curtains, so that for anything she could see outside there might just as well have been no window at all. The queen jumped up with delight at the sight of her visitor, to whom she could talk freely about all the gossip from Paris, of which she only heard in letters from the kind Madame her stepmother. Of course she knew quite well that the Camarera Mayor hated her to speak French, which _she_ could not understand, and would be crosser than ever that evening; but the queen did not care, and when she said good-bye to her visitor implored her to come again very soon and to bring all her letters with her. As it happened, the very next day Madame d'Aulnoy received some particularly interesting ones about the marriage of the queen's cousin, the Prince de Conti, and wrote to ask if the queen would like to see it; but the Duchess of Terranova answered that 'Her Majesty