ing cheeks and flashing eyes. "She has been queen long
enough, and I have bowed myself before her. Now she shall fall in the
dust before me, and I will set my foot upon her head."

CHAPTER XI. THE RIDE.

It was a wondrous morning. The dew still lay on the grass of the
meadows, over which they had just ridden to reach the thicket of the
forest, in whose trees resounded the melodious voices of blithe birds.
Then they rode along the banks of a babbling forest stream, and spied
the deer that came forth into the glade on the other side, as if they
wanted, like the queen and her train, to listen to the song of the birds
and the murmuring of the fountains. Catharine felt a nameless, blissful
pleasure swell her bosom. She was to-day no more the queen, surrounded
by perils and foes; no more the wife of an unloved, tyrannical husband;
not the queen trammelled with the shackles of etiquette. She was a free,
happy woman, who, in presageful, blissful trepidation, smiled at
the future, and said to each minute, "Stay, stay, for thou art so
beautiful!"

It was a sweet, dreamy happiness, the happiness of that hour. With
glad heart, Catharine would have given her crown for it, could she have
prolonged this hour to an eternity.

He was at her side--he of whom John Heywood had said, that he was among
her most trustful and trusty friends. He was there; and even if she did
not dare to look at him often, often to speak to him, yet she felt his
presence, she perceived the glowing beams of his eyes, which rested on
her with consuming fire. Nobody could observe them. For the court rode
behind them, and before them and around them was naught but Nature
breathing and smiling with joy, naught but heaven and God.

She had forgotten however that she was not quite alone, and that
while Thomas Seymour rode on her left, on her right was Princess
Elizabeth--that young girl of fourteen years--that child, who, however,
under the fire of suffering and the storms of adversity, was early
forced to precocious bloom, and whose heart, by the tears and experience
of her unhappy childhood, had acquired an early ripeness. Elizabeth,
a child in years, had already all the strength and warmth of a woman's
feelings. Elizabeth, the disowned and disinherited princess, had
inherited her father's pride and ambition; and when she looked on the
queen, and perceived that little crown wrought on her velvet cap in
diamond embroidery, she felt in her bosom a sharp p