Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

224
"As noble as yourself," answered the kneeling steel.
"Who answers for thee?"
"I, Karl, Margrave of Godesberg, his father!" said the knight on the right hand, lifting up
his visor.
"And I—Ludwig, Count of Hombourg, his godfather!" said the knight on the left, doing
likewise.
The kneeling knight lifted up his visor now, and looked on Helen.
"I KNEW IT WAS," said she, and fainted as she saw Otto the Archer.
But she was soon brought to, gentles, as I have small need to tell ye. In a very few days
after, a great marriage took place at Cleves under the patronage of Saint Bugo, Saint Buffo,
and Saint Bendigo. After the marriage ceremony, the happiest and handsomest pair in the
world drove off in a chaise-and-four, to pass the honeymoon at Kissingen. The Lady
Theodora, whom we left locked up in her convent a long while since, was prevailed upon to
come back to Godesberg, where she was reconciled to her husband. Jealous of her
daughter-in-law, she idolized her son, and spoiled all her little grandchildren. And so all are
happy, and my simple tale is done.
I read it in an old, old book, in a mouldy old circulating library. 'Twas written in the French
tongue, by the noble Alexandre Dumas; but 'tis probable that he stole it from some other,
and that the other had filched it from a former tale-teller. For nothing is new under the sun.
Things die and are reproduced only. And so it is that the forgotten tale of the great Dumas
reappears under the signature of
THERESA MACWHIRTER.
WHISTLEBINKIE, N.B., December 1.
REBECCA AND ROWENA.