to Castle Holt, my lord, and bring us Princess Elizabeth."

CHAPTER X. THE KING'S FOOL.

Two years had passed away since the king's marriage, and still Catharine
Parr had always kept in favor with her husband; still her enemies were
foiled in their attempts to ruin her, and raise the seventh queen to the
throne.

Catharine had ever been cautious, ever discreet. She had always
preserved a cold heart and a cool head. Each morning she had said to
herself that this day might be her last; that some incautious word,
some inconsiderate act, might deprive her of her crown and her life.
For Henry's savage and cruel disposition seemed, like his corpulency,
to increase daily, and it needed only a trifle to inflame him to the
highest pitch of rage, rage which, each time, fell with fatal stroke on
him who aroused it.

A knowledge and consciousness of this had made the queen cautious. She
did not wish to die yet. She still loved life so much. She loved it
because it had as yet afforded her so little delight. She loved it
because she had so much happiness, so much rapture and enjoyment yet to
hope from it. She did not wish to die yet, for she was ever waiting for
that life of which she had a foretaste only in her dreams, and which her
palpitating and swelling heart told her was ready to awake in her, and,
with its sunny, brilliant eyes, arouse her from the winter sleep of her
existence.

It was a bright and beautiful spring day. Catharine wanted to avail
herself of it, to take a ride and forget for one brief hour that she was
a queen. She wanted to enjoy the woods, the sweet May breeze, the song
of birds, the green meadows, and to inhale in full draughts the pure
air.

She wanted to ride. Nobody suspected how much secret delight and hidden
rapture lay in these words. No one suspected that for months she had
been looking forward with pleasure to this ride, and scarcely dared
to wish for it, just because it would be the fulfilment of her ardent
wishes.

She was already dressed in her riding-habit, and the little red velvet
hat, with its long, drooping white feather, adorned her beautiful head.
Walking up and down the room, she was waiting only for the return of the
lord chamberlain, whom she had sent to the king to inquire whether he
wished to speak with her before her ride.

Suddenly the door opened, and a strange apparition showed itself on the
threshold. It was a small, compact masculine figure, clad in vesture of