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"I believed at one point that the feathers meant to depart without me."

"Then it is fortunate I had no intention of allowing them to take you."

Lady Matlock's expression remained composed. Elizabeth noticed, however, that the countess had creased the edge of one glove where her thumb had worried the fabric during the presentation. It moved Elizabeth more than the praise. She slipped her arm through the countess's for the walk back to the carriage, and neither referred to the glove again.

The relief of returning home was so great that Elizabeth scarcely noticed the fatigue until Anne began removing pins. When the last feather came free, she laughed aloud.

"I should like it recorded," she said, "that I entered the royal presence with all three feathers and returned with the same number. That must count as a social triumph."

"It counts as an excellent excuse for an early supper," Anne answered.

The Earl was waiting in the drawing room when Elizabeth descended in a simpler gown. Richard stood beside the mantelpiece holding a folded sheet of paper. Saye sat near the window with his correspondence, evidently prepared to be an innocent observer of whatever mischief was about to unfold.

"We have considered your likely accomplishments," Richard announced. "I have prepared a list of calamities, and Saye has undertaken to record which you escaped."

"I was not consulted," Saye said. "A circumstance I hope no one will construe as agreement."

Richard unfolded the paper. "One: feathers lost in the passage. Two: train entangled in the doorway. Three: the Queen inquired whether you intended to reform the monarchy. Four: you corrected the royal German."

"The Queen did not speak German to me," Elizabeth said. "I should have answered very respectfully if she had."

"And terribly fluently," Richard said. "That would have been the true danger."

"I am relieved that a subject's grammar has not yet become treason," Saye observed.

The Earl waved them into seats. "You will make Elizabeth believe that presentation is a gauntlet from which the successful emerge with their limbs intact."

"I have emerged with my limbs intact," Elizabeth answered. "The colonel need not invent an accomplishment I have already achieved."

Lady Matlock joined them and gave a more dignified account of the afternoon. When she described the Queen's brief question, the Earl looked at Elizabeth with satisfaction.

"Her Majesty knows good sense when she sees it," he said.

"I fear Her Majesty knows that good sense is still a matter of hope rather than demonstration," Elizabeth answered.

After supper the family dispersed. Elizabeth found Lady Matlock in her sitting room and asked permission to write immediately to Jane, who had been waiting eagerly for an account.

"Of course," the countess said. "Tell her whatever you please."

Elizabeth hesitated. "I am grateful to you for today. I have said it so often that I fear you are tired of hearing it."

"I am never tired of affection, but I should prefer that you enjoy what is offered rather than reckon it afterward."

"It is only that Mama could never have imagined I should stand before the Queen of England."

Lady Matlock looked at her with thoughtful affection. "Perhaps not. But I suspect she imagined many possibilities for you. Mothers generally do."

When Elizabeth sat down to write, she began by describing the feathers. Jane would appreciate the absurdity, and Mary would want to know the particulars of the dress. But midway through the letter her pen slowed. She remembered Queen Charlotte's voice and the curious knowledge her mother had possessed about court ceremony. Had Minna once stood in such a room herself, in some country Elizabeth could not name? Had her mother been accustomed to ladies in silk and powdered servants standing at attention, or had she merely observed them from a distance?

She touched the locket. The little portrait inside could not answer her.

Before taking the letter upstairs, Elizabeth sat for a few minutes with Saye beside the fire. He had been too occupied during the afternoon to congratulate her properly, and she suspected the court ceremony seemed a strange subject for a man whose days were generally consumed by rents and roofs.

"Did you find it very terrifying?" he asked.

"Only until I was required to move. Then I discovered that my body remembered the instructions better than my head did."

"I had a similar experience when I first appeared in my father's place at a public meeting," Saye said. "I stood before a room full of men who had known me since I was a child and became convinced that I had forgotten how to speak."