sorrowfully. "You choose the one only because the other is denied. You would love only because you cannot rule; and since your heart, which thirsts for fame and honor, can find no other satisfaction, you would quench its thirst with some other draught, and would administer love as an opiate to lull to rest its burning pains. Believe me, princess, you do not yet know yourself! You were not born to be merely a loving wife, and your brow is much too high and haughty to wear only a crown of myrtle. Therefore, consider well what you do, princess! Be not carried away by your father's passionate blood, which boils in your veins also. Think well before you act. Your foot is yet on one of the steps to the throne. Draw it not back voluntarily. Maintain your position; then, the next step brings you again one stair higher up. Do not voluntarily renounce your just claim, but abide in patience the coming of the day of retribution and justice. Only do not yourself make it impossible, that there may then be a full and glorious reparation. PRINCESS Elizabeth may yet one day be queen, provided she has not exchanged her name for one less glorious and noble."

"John Heywood," said she, with a bewitching smile, "I have told you I love him."

"Well, love him as much as you please, but do it in silence, and tell him not of it; but teach your love resignation."

"John, he knows it already."

"Ah, poor princess! you are still but a child, that sticks its hands in the fire with smiling bravery and scorches them, because it knows not that fire burns."

"Let it burn, John, burn! and let the flames curl over my head! Better be consumed in fire than perish slowly and horribly with a deadly chill! I love him, I tell you, and he already knows it!"

"Well, then, love him, but, at least, do not marry him!" cried John Heywood, surlily.

"Marry!" cried she, with astonishment. "Marry! I had never thought of it."

She dropped her head upon her breast, and stood there, silent and thoughtful.

"I am much afraid I made a blunder, then!" muttered John Heywood. "I have suggested a new thought to her. Ah, ah, King Henry has done well in appointing me his fool! Just when we deem ourselves the wisest, we are the greatest fools!"

"John," said Elizabeth, as she raised her head again and smiled to him in a glow of excitement, "John, you are entirely right; if we love, we must marry."

"But I said just the contrary, princess!"

"All right!" said she, resolutely. "All this belongs to the future; we will busy ourselves with the present. I have promised my lover an interview."

"An interview!" cried John Heywood, in amazement. "You will not be so foolhardy as to keep your promise?"

"John Heywood," said she, with an air of approaching solemnity, "King Henry's daughter will never make a promise without fulfilling it. For better or for worse, I will always keep my plighted word, even if the greatest misery and ruin were the result!"

John Heywood ventured to offer no further opposition. There was at this moment something peculiarly lofty, proud, and truly royal in her air, which impressed him with awe, and before which he bowed.

"I have granted him an interview because he wished it," said Elizabeth; "and, John, I will confess it to you, my own heart longed for it. Seek not, then, to shake my resolution; it is as firm as a rock. But if you are not willing to stand by me, say so, and I will then look about me for another friend, who loves me enough to impose silence on his thoughts."

"But who, perhaps, will go and betray you. No, no, it has been once resolved upon, and unalterably; so no one but I must be your confidant. Tell me, then, what I am to do, and I will obey you."

"You know, John, that my apartments are situated in yonder wing, overlooking the garden. Well, in my dressing-room, behind one of the large wall pictures, I have discovered a door leading into a lonely, dark corridor. From this corridor there is a passage up into yonder tower. It is unoccupied and deserted. Nobody ever thinks of entering that part of the castle, and the quiet of the grave reigns throughout those apartments, which nevertheless are furnished with a magnificence truly regal. There will I receive him."

"But how shall he make his way thither?"

"Oh, do not be concerned; I have thought over that many days since; and while I was refusing my lover the interview for which he again and again implored me, I was quietly preparing everything so as to be able one day to grant it to him. Today this object is attained, and today have I fulfilled his wish, voluntarily and unasked; for I saw he had no more courage to ask again. Listen, then. From the tower, a spiral staircase leads down to a small door, through which you gain entrance into the garden. I have a key to this door. Here it is. Once in possession of this key, he has nothing further to do but remain behind in the park this evening, instead of leaving the castle; and by means of this he will come to me, for I will wait for him in the tower, in the large room directly opposite the staircase landing. Here, take the key; give it to him, and repeat to him all that I have said."

"Well, princess, there remains for you now only to appoint the hour at which you will receive him there."

"The hour," said she, as she turned away her blushing face. "You understand, John, that it is not feasible to receive him there by day, because there is by day not a single moment in which I am not watched."

"You will then receive him by night!" said John Heywood, sadly. "At what hour?"

"At midnight! And now you know all; and I beg you, John, hasten and carry him my message; for, look, the sun is setting, and it will soon be night."

She nodded to him with a smile, and turned to go.

"Princess, you have forgotten the most important point. You have not yet told me his name."

"My God! and you do not guess it? John Heywood, who has such sharp eyes, sees not that there is at this court but a single one that deserves to be loved by a daughter of the king!"

"And the name of this single one is--"

"Thomas Seymour, Earl of Sudley!" whispered Elizabeth, as she turned away quickly and entered the castle.

"Oh, Thomas Seymour!" said John Heywood, utterly astounded. As if paralyzed with horror, he stood there motionless, staring up at the sky and repealing over and over, "Thomas Seymour! Thomas Seymour! So he is a sorcerer who administers a love-potion to all the women, and befools them with his handsome, saucy face. Thomas Seymour! The queen loves him; the princess loves him; and then there is this Duchess of Richmond, who will by all means be his wife! This much, however, is certain, he is a traitor who deceives both, because to both he has made the same confession of love. And there again is that imp, chance, which compels me to be the confidant of both these women. But I will be well on my guard against executing both my commissions to this sorcerer. Let him at any rate become the husband of the princess; perhaps this would be the surest means of freeing the queen from her unfortunate love."

He was silent, and still gazed up thoughtfully at the sky. "Yes," said he then, quite cheerfully, "thus shall it be. I will combat the one love with the other. For the queen to love him, is dangerous. I will therefore so conduct matters that she must hate him. I will remain her confidant. I will receive her letters and her commissions, but I will burn her letters and not execute her commissions. I am not at liberty to tell her that the faithless Thomas Seymour is false to her, for I have solemnly pledged my word to the princess never to breathe her secret to any one; and I will and must keep my word. Smile and love, then; dream on thy sweet dream of love, queen; I wake for thee; I will cause the dark cloud resting on thee to pass by. It may, perhaps, touch thine heart; but thy noble and beautiful head--that at least it shall not be allowed to crush; that--"

"Now, then, what are you staring up at the sky for, as if you read there a new epigram with which to make the king laugh, and the parsons rave?" asked a voice near him; and a hand was laid heavily on his shoulder.

John Heywood did not look round at all; he remained in the same attitude, gazing up steadily at the sky. He had very readily recognized the voice of him who had addressed him; he knew very well that he who stood near him was no other than the bold sorcerer whom he was just then cursing at the bottom of his heart; no other than Thomas Seymour, Earl of Sudley.

"Say, John, is it really an epigram?" asked Thomas Seymour again. "An epigram on the hypocritical, lustful, and sanctimonious priestly rabble, that with blasphemous hypocrisy fawn about the king, and are ever watchful how they can set a trap for one of us honorable and brave men? Is that what Heaven is now revealing to you?"

"No, my lord, I am only looking at a hawk which hovers about there in the clouds. I saw him mount, earl, and only think of the wonder-- he had in each talon a dove! Two doves for one hawk. Is not that too much--wholly contrary to law and nature?"

The earl cast on him a penetrating and distrustful look. But John Heywood, remaining perfectly calm and unembarrassed, continued looking at the clouds.

"How stupid such a brute is, and how much to his disadvantage will his very greediness be! For since he holds a dove in each claw, he will not be able to enjoy either of them; because he has no claw at liberty with which to tear them. Soon as he wishes to enjoy the one, the other will escape; when he grabs after that, the other flies away; and so at last he will have nothing at all, because he was too