midnight
` Follow thy Queen now ! ' Catherine , who sat between her daughters Claude and Marguerite , looked pre-occupied , and summarily dismissed her daughter-in-law , Elizabeth , whom Eustacie was obliged to follow to her own state-room . There all the forms of the COUCHER were tediously gone through ; every pin had its own ceremony , and even when her Majesty was safely deposited under her blue satin coverlet the ladies still stood round till she felt disposed to fall asleep . Elisabeth was both a sleepy and a considerate person , so that this was not so protracted a vigil as was sometimes exacted by the more wakeful princesses ; but Eustacie could not escape from it till it was already almost midnight , the period for her tryst . Her heart was very full . It was not the usual flutter and terror of an eloping girl . Eustacie was a fearless little being , and her conscience had no alarms ; her affections were wholly with Berenger , and her transient glimpses of him had been as of something come out of a region higher , tenderer , stronger , purer , more trustworthy than that where she had dwelt .