“You are very unkind, Harold,” answered Marie-Celeste accusingly. “It is the most mortifying thing that ever happened, if she really was the Queen,” and then, trying to gather a little new courage, she added, “but I am not going to believe it till I have to. There must be a mistake somewhere. The lady we saw is not one bit like the pictures or the statues,” and yet all the time Marie-Celeste felt that she was clinging to a forlorn hope. During their stay at the castle there had been an occasional exchange of glances between their royal hostess and Miss Belmore and a frequent amused look in their eyes, which she had been at a loss to account for; but this would explain it all. Ah, yes! she knew almost to a certainty that their long talk about Petite Reine of other days had been with none other than La Grande Reine of to-day, and the crimes of the dreadful Huntington seemed hardly worse, for the moment, than that of that most audacious Albert!