True it is, that we can excuse your
anxiety, considering that these august apartments are so scantily
furnished, that we have not been able to offer you even the relief of
a stool during the long time you have afforded us the pleasure of your
society."
"The will, madam," said the lady, "the will to offer such
accommodation was more wanting than the means."
"What!" said the Queen, looking round, and affecting surprise, "there
are then stools in this apartment--one, two--no less than four,
including the broken one--a royal garniture!--We observed them
not--will it please your ladyship to sit?"
"No, madam, I will soon relieve you of my presence," replied the Lady
Lochleven; "and while with you, my aged limbs can still better brook
fatigue, than my mind stoop to accept of constrained courtesy."
"Nay, Lady of Lochleven, if you take it so deeply," said the Queen,
rising and motioning to her own vacant chair, "I would rather you
assumed my seat--you are not the first of your family who has done
so."
The Lady of Lochleven curtsied a negative, but seemed with much
difficulty to suppress the angry answer which rose to her lips.
During this sharp conversation, the page's attention had been almost
entirely occupied by the entrance of Catherine Seyton, who came from
the inner apartment, in the usual dress in which she attended upon the
Queen, and with nothing in her manner which marked either the hurry or
confusion incident to a hasty change of disguise, or the conscious
fear of detection in a perilous enterprise.
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