Marie Antoinette shrugged herself together a little at this
announcement, which interrupted her while engaged in charming
unrestrained conversation with the Duchess de Polignac, and a shadow
flitted across her lofty brow.
With fiery quickness she flung her arms around the neck of her
friend, and pressed a kiss upon her lips. "Farewell, Julia; Madame
Adelaide is coming: that is just the same as irritation and
annoyance. She may not bear the least suspicion of this upon her
fine and dearly-loved face, and just because they are not there, I
must tell you, my dear friend, to leave me. But hold yourself in
readiness, after Madame Annoyance has left me, to ride with me to
Trianon. The queen must remain here half an hour still, but she will
be rewarded for it, for Marie Antoinette will afterward go with her
Julia to Trianon to spend a half day of pleasure with her husband
and friends."
"And to impart to her friends an eternity of blissful
recollections," said the duchess, with a charming smile, pressing
the hand of the queen to her lips, and taking her leave with
inimitable grace, in order to pass out through the little side-door
which entered the corridor through a porcelain cabinet, intending
then to visit the rooms of the 'children of France.'
At the same moment in which the lofty, dignified form of the duchess
disappeared through the side-door, both wings of the main entrance
were flung open, and the two maids of honor of the queen advanced to
the threshold, and made so deep a reverence that their immense
petticoats expanded like a kettle.
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