queen'--"

"Will _you_ tell the story, then, or shall I?"--cried Nignio,
impatient of his interruption.

"_Yourself_, my pearl of squires! granting me in the first place your
pardon for my ill manners."--

"When Margaret de Valois visited Namur," resumed Nignio, "the best
diversions we had to offer to so fair and pious a princess were,
first a _Te Deum_ in the cathedral for her safe journey; next, an
entertainment of dancing and music at the town hall--and a gallant
affair it was, as far as silver draperies, and garlands of roses, and
a blaze of light that seemed to threaten the conflagration of the
city, may be taken in praise. The queen had brought with her, as with
_malice prepense_, six of the loveliest ladies of honour gracing the
court of the Louvre"--

"I _knew_ it!"--again interrupted Gonzaga;--and again did Nignio
gravely enquire of him whether (since so well informed) he would be
pleased to finish the history in his own way?

"Your pardon! your pardon!" cried the Italian, laying his finger on
his lips. "Henceforward I am mute as a carp of the Meuse."

"It afforded, therefore, some mortification to this astutious
princess,--this daughter of Herodias, with more than all her mother's
cunning and cruelty in her soul,--to perceive that the Spanish
warriors, who on that occasion beheld for the first time the
assembled nobility of Brabant and Namur, were more struck by the