Idalie de Montemar was not long permitted to indulge her grief in solitude. Scarcely two months after her loss, an express arrived from Paris, and she was compelled to prepare her chateau and vassals for the reception of the young king, the queen mother, and court, who in their progress to the south passed through Auvergne. Idalie roused herself from the sorrow which weighed so heavily on her spirits. Although chivalry had lost much of the enthusiasm and warmth which had characterised it not half a century previous, its memory still lingered in the minds of men; and something of this feeling actuated the men of Montemar as they looked on their youthful countess. Shrinking and timid as she had been while her parent lived, a new spirit now seemed her own; and it was with all the proud consciousness that she was now sole representative of one of the most ancient and most noble families of France that Idalie de Montemar, at the head of her loyal vassals, received her royal guests, and knelt in homage to the youthful Charles.

But amid all that royal group only one had power over the heart of Idalie, and she grieved to see the saddened brow and anxious glance, which had usurped the place of the radiant smiles and sparkling eye, which had never before failed to beam forth from the lovely countenance of Mary Queen of Scots. Robed so completely in white (the costume of royal widows) as to receive the designation of La Reine blanche, her beauty rather increased than diminished by its softened tone; she was to many an object of still deeper interest now than she had been hitherto; but it was very soon evident to Idalie that the petty mortifications springing from rooted envy and dislike, to which she was daily, almost hourly subjected by Catherine, were poisoning all youthful enjoyment, and that even while she clave with her whole soul to France, she felt it must not be her home much longer.

Feeling deeply, as she did, that it was to Mary’s faithful friendship her betrothed husband owed his life, Idalie’s high spirit rose indignant at this treatment. That the marked respect with which she treated her, the constant deference to her wishes, during the royal sojourn, exposed her to Catherine’s fatal malice, she cared not for. Soothed by her affection, roused to a sense of her own dignity as sovereign of Scotland, if no longer of France, it was during her sojourn at the Chateau de Montemar, Mary resolved on her return to her native land, and by earnest persuasions prevailed on the young countess to sue for the royal permission to accompany her. It was granted, ungraciously enough; for her engagement with the Count de Montgomeri was know............