The Return Home
She broke away from her mother’s hand and ran up to her father’s horse.
“O Clotilde! O Queen!” she gasped. “Are you really safe back again? You are not hurt through my fault? Oh, I am so glad!”
Clotilde made Pierre set her down from the horse, and the two children threw their arms about each other, sobbing with excitement. How the dignified uncles and aunts of Clotilde stared in disgust and surprise at such a sight! They had come to shake hands with their niece, and to congratulate her upon her safe return in quite the proper, courtly way. But she did not seem to see them nor to care about them at all. So they stood back, wondering what it all meant. This did not seem like the same cold, quiet little Queen whom they had last seen eating her dinner in the palace hall, surrounded by her stiff servants, and with nothing childish about her. Indeed, Clotilde would never again be quite the same. But this they were to discover later, little by little, as the days went by.
“Is Mignon safe?” whispered Nichette in the Queen’s ear, while everybody stood staring at the two children. Clotilde nodded and held out73
