"Let me look at you," cried Margaret. "Ah! have you recovered that
terrible mishap? By my troth, 'tis nearly gone. I should never have
found it out had I not known!"
This was rather an exaggeration, but joy did make a good deal of
difference in Grisell's face, and the Duchess Margaret was one of the
most eager and warm-hearted people living, fervent alike in love and
in hate, ready both to act on slight evidence for those whose cause
she took up, and to nourish bitter hatred against the enemies of her
house.
"Now, tell me all," she continued in English. "I heard that you had
been driven out of Wilton, and my uncle of Warwick had sped you
northward. How is it that you are here, weaving lace like any
mechanical sempstress? Nay, nay! I cannot listen to you on your
knees. We have hugged one another too often for that."
Grisell, with the elder Duchess's permission, seated herself on the
cushion at Margaret's feet. "Speak English," continued the bride.
"I am wearying already of French! Ma belle mere, you will not find
fault. You know a little of our own honest tongue."
Duchess Isabel smiled, and Grisell, in answer to the questions of
Margaret, told her story. When she came to the mention of her
marriage to Leonard Copeland, there was the vindictive exclamation,
"Bound to that blood-thirsty traitor! Never! After the way he
treated you, no marvel that he fell on my sweet Edmund!"
"Ah! madame, he did not! He tried to save him.
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