lled her eyes, and her heart trembled as
if before some approaching calamity.

CHAPTER II. THE QUEEN AND HER FRIEND

At last this long day of ceremonies and festivities drew near its close,
and Catharine might soon hope to be, for the time, relieved from this
endless presenting and smiling, from this ever-renewed homage.

At her husband's side she had shown herself on the balcony to receive
the greetings of the people, and to bow her thanks. Then in the spacious
audience-chamber her newly appointed court had passed before her in
formal procession, and she had exchanged a few meaningless, friendly
words with each of these lords and ladies. Afterward she had, at her
husband's side, given audience to the deputations from the city and from
Parliament. But it was only with a secret shudder that she had received
from their lips the same congratulations and praises with which the
authorities had already greeted five other wives of the king.

Still she had been able to smile and seem happy, for she well knew that
the king's eye was never off of her, and that all these lords and ladies
who now met her with such deference, and with homage apparently so
sincere, were yet, in truth, all her bitter enemies. For by her marriage
she had destroyed so many hopes, she had pushed aside so many who
believed themselves better fitted to assume the lofty position of queen!
She knew that these victims of disappointment would never forgive her
this; that she, who was but yesterday their equal, had to-day soared
above them as queen and mistress; she knew that all these were watching
with spying eyes her every word and action, in order, it might be, to
forge therefrom an accusation or a death-warrant.

But nevertheless she smiled! She smiled, though she felt that the choler
of the king, so easily kindled and so cruelly vindictive, ever swung
over her head like the sword of Damocles.

She smiled, so that this sword might not fall upon her.

At length all these presentations, this homage and rejoicing were well
over, and they came to the more agreeable and satisfactory part of the
feast.

They went to dinner. That was Catharine's first moment of respite,
of rest. For when Henry the Eighth seated himself at table, he was
no longer the haughty monarch and the jealous husband, but merely the
proficient artiste and the impassioned gourmand; and whether the pastry
was well seasoned, and the pheasant of good flavor, was for him then a
fa