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that mad monk pierced him to the heart.”
    “My dearest Aunt, you upset yourself for something that happened years ago … when you have so many present troubles with which to concern yourself.”
    Henrietta Maria flashed a look of irritation at her niece. Mademoiselle was clever; she granted her that; she knew how to make those little thrusts in the spots where they hurt most. There she was, the arrogant young beauty, reminding her aunt that she, Mademoiselle, cousin to the King, daughter of Monsieur de France, was really being rather gracious by spending so much of her precious time with her poor exiled aunt.
    Henrietta Maria could subdue her anger when great issues were at stake.
    “My son is of great height, already a man. They say he bears a striking resemblance to my father.”
    “In looks only, I trust, Your Majesty. Your father, our great King, Henri Quatre, was France’s greatest King, we all know, but he was also France’s greatest lover.”
    “My son will love deeply also. There is that charm in him which tells me so.”
    “Let us hope, for the sake of the wife he will marry, that in one respect he will not resemble your great father whose mistresses were legion.”
    “Ah! He has his father’s blood in him as well as that of my father. Therenever was a more noble man, nor a more faithful, than my Charles. I, his wife, tell you that, and I know it.”
    “Then, dear Aunt, you were indeed fortunate in your husband. When I choose mine, fidelity is one of the qualities I shall look for.”
    “Beauty such as yours would keep any man faithful.”
    “Such as your father, Madame, would never be faithful to Venus herself. And as your son is so like him …”
    “Tush! He is but a boy!”
    “So very young that he need not think of marriage yet.”
    “A Prince is never too young to think of marriage.”
    “Mayhap while his affairs are in a state of flux, it would be wise to wait. A great heiress would more readily accept a King whose crown is safe than one who may live through his life with only the hope of regaining it.”
    Mademoiselle was smiling absently to herself. Her thoughts were of marriage, but not of one between herself and the young Prince of England. Henrietta Maria fumed silently. She knew what was in the minx’s mind. Marriage, yes! And with her royal cousin, the King of France. And Henrietta Maria had already decided that Louis XIV was for her own Henrietta.

    The Princess Henriette—she had been Henriette from the moment she passed into her mother’s care—loved her brother immediately she set eyes on him. He came into the nursery where she was with her governess, poor pale Lady Dalkeith, who had just risen from her sickbed to find herself fêted as the heroine of the year. Lady Dalkeith, serious-minded and conscientious, found little pleasure in the eulogies which came her way; she had discovered the Queen’s determination to bring up the child in the Catholic faith, which was against the wishes of the King of England and his people; and this disturbed her so much that she could feel only apprehension in contemplating the fact that she, having successfully conducted the child to her mother, was indirectly responsible.
    But the little Henriette was unaware of the storms about her; all she knew was that she had a brother, and that as soon as she saw him, and he held her in his arms and told her that he had known her when she was a very tiny baby, she loved him.
    “Charles!” she would cry in her high-pitched baby voice. “Dear Charles!”
    And he would call her his baby sister. “But,” he said, “Henriette is such a long name for such a small person, and now I hear they are to add Anne to it out of respect for King Louis’ mother. It is far too long. My little puss … my little love, you shall be my Minette.”
    “Minette?” she said wonderingly.
    “It shall be my name for you. It is something we share, you and I, dear little sister.”
    She was pleased. “Minette!” she said.