s 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 kno