Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/108

90 and frequently the eye of the tabby-loving spinster was gladdened by the touching spectacle of a blonde mamma in the bosom of her young family.

"If I could only carry it, I'd have one of those dears, no matter what it cost!" cried Lavinia, more captivated by a live cat than by all the dead Huguenots that Catherine de Medicis hung over the castle walls on a certain memorable occasion.

"Well, you can't, so come on and improve your mind with some good, useful history," said Amanda, leading them forward. "You must remember that Charles VII. was born here in 1470. That Anne of Brittany married him for her first husband, and that he bumped his head against a low door in the garden here above, as he was running through to play bowls with his Anne, and it killed him."

"Which? the bump or the bowls?" asked Mat, who liked to have things clearly stated.

"Don't be frivolous, child. Here Margaret of Anjou and her son were reconciled to Warwick. Abd-el Kader and his family were kept prisoners here, and in the garden is a tomb with a crescent on it; likewise a 'pleached walk,' and a winding drive inside the great tower, up which lords and