"
"If I had only had my bow," Agnes said regretfully, "I could really have
done something. You would have let me go out then, mother, would you not?"
"I don't know, dear; no, I don't think I should. It was anxious work
enough for me as it was. If you had gone out I must have done so, and then
Charlie would have wanted to go too. No; it was much better that we all
sat together as we did, waiting quietly for what might come, and praying
for those who were fighting for us."
"I was glad that Madame Leroux stayed upstairs with her maid instead of
coming down here as you asked her, mother; she looked so scared and white
that I do think it would have been worse than listening to the fighting to
have had to sit and look at her."
Dame Margaret smiled. "Yes, Agnes, but I think that she was more
frightened for her husband than for herself, and I don't suppose that she
had ever been in danger before. Indeed, I must say that to look out at
that crowd of horrible creatures below, brandishing their weapons,
shouting and yelling, was enough to terrify any quiet and peaceable woman.
As a knight's wife and daughter it was our duty to be calm and composed
and to set an example, but a citizen's wife would not feel the same
obligation, and might show her alarm without feeling that she disgraced
herself or her husband."
On going out Guy found their host already engaged in a conference with a
master carpenter as to the construction of the new doors.
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