And the Crow who was watching her closely, wondered why this gay scene should make the lovely bride look so pitifully sad.

"How _Maman_ would have loved all this!" she was thinking, "with her gay, tender soul, and her delight in make-believe and joyous picnics." And her father--he had known all these sorts of people; they were his own class, and yet he had come to live in the great, gloomy castle, out of his own land, and expected his exquisite, young wife to stay there alone, most of the time.

The hideous cruelty of men! And there was her Uncle Francis, in quite a new character!--helping Lady Ethelrida to lay the table, as happily as a boy.

Would she herself ever be happy, she wondered, ever have a time free from some agonizing strain or care?
And then, from sorrow her expression changed to one of strange slumberous resentment at fate.
"Queen Anne," said the Crow, as they sat down to luncheon, "there is some tragedy hanging over that young woman.

She has been suffering like the devil for at least ten minutes, and forgot I was even beside her and pretending to talk.