"
"No, my dear child," Isabelle replied, touched by her naive expressions
of affection and admiration, "I do not think so. You have beauty
too--you only need to make yourself neat and clean to be as pretty a
little girl as one would wish to see."
"Do you really think so? Are you telling me true? I would steal fine
clothes if they would make me pretty, for then Agostino would love me."
This idea brought a little flush of colour to her thin brown cheeks, and
for a few minutes she seemed lost in a pleasant reverie.
"Do you know where we are?" asked Isabelle, when Chiquita looked up at
her again.
"In a chateau that belongs to the great seignior who has so much money,
and who wanted to carry you off at Poitiers. I had only to draw the bolt
and it would have been done then. But you gave me the pearl necklace,
and I love you, and I would not do anything you did not like."
"Yet you have helped to carry me off this time," said Isabelle
reproachfully. "Is it because you don't love me any more that you have
given me up to my enemies?"
"Agostino ordered me, and I had to obey; besides, some other child could
have played guide to the blind man as well as I, and then I could not
have come into the chateau with you, do you see?--here I may be able to
do something to help you.
Pages:
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503