ery line of her, the cut of every
cloth; she could have picked it out miles away, among a whole fleet, but
it never came, and Mrs. Leigh bowed her head and worshipped, and went
to and fro among the poor, who looked on her as an awful being, and one
whom God had brought very near to Himself, in that mysterious heaven of
sorrow which they too knew full well. And lone women and bed-ridden men
looked in her steadfast eyes, and loved them, and drank in strength from
them; for they knew (though she never spoke of her own grief) that she
had gone down into the fiercest depths of the fiery furnace, and was
walking there unhurt by the side of One whose form was as of the Son
of God. And all the while she was blaming herself for her "earthly"
longings, and confessing nightly to Heaven that weakness which she could
not shake off, which drew her feet at each high tide to the terrace-walk
beneath the row of wind-clipt trees.

But this evening Northam is in a stir. The pebble ridge is thundering
far below, as it thundered years ago: but Northam is noisy enough
without the rolling of the surge. The tower is rocking with the pealing
bells: the people are all in the streets shouting and singing round
bonfires. They are burning the pope in effigy, drinking to the queen's
health, and "So perish all her enemies!" The hills are red with bonfires
in every village; and far away, the bells of Bideford are answering
the bells of Northam, as they answered them seven years ago, when Amyas
returned from sailing round the world. For this day has come the news
that Mary Queen of Scots is beheaded in Fotheringay; and all England,
like a dreamer who shakes off some hideous nightmare, has leapt up in
one tremendous shout of jubilation, as the terror and the danger of
seventeen anxious years is lifted from its heart for ever.

Yes, she is gone, to answer at a higher tribunal than that of the
Estates of England, for all the noble English blood which has been
poured out for her; for all the noble English hearts whom she has
tempted into treachery, rebellion, and murder. Elizabeth's own words
have been fulfilled at last, after years of long-suffering,--

"The daughter of debate,
That discord aye doth sow,
Hath reap'd no gain where former rule
Hath taught still peace to grow."

And now she can do evil no more. Murder and adultery, the heart which
knew no forgiveness, the tongue which could not speak truth even for its
own intere