Note 233 — Chapter VIII

This was a sad discovery for a lovely girl of fifteen years of age, who had anticipated nothing less than devotion on the part of a young husband by whom she had been so eagerly met on her arrival; nor did she fail to contrast his coldness with the ill-disguised admiration of many of his great nobles, and to weep over the wreck of her fondest and fairest visions. But, young and high-spirited, she struggled against the isolation of soul to which she was condemned; and probably resented with more bitterness the coercion to which she was subjected by the iron rule of her royal mother-in-law than even the coldness of the husband to whom she had been prepared to give up her whole heart.[233]