uous smile was on her lips.

"What! Can you thus advise me?" said she. "Can you wish me to deny my
faith, and abjure my God, only to escape earthly pain? And your tongue
does not refuse to utter this, and your heart does not shrink with shame
while you do it? Look at these arms; what are they worth that I should
not sacrifice them to God? See these feeble limbs! Are they so precious
that I, like a disgusting niggard, should spare them? No, no, God is my
highest good--not this feeble, decaying body! For God I sacrifice it.
I should recant? Never! Faith is not enveloped in this or that garb; it
must be naked and open. So may mine be. And if I then am chosen to be
an example of pure faith, that denies not, and makes profession--well,
then, envy me not this preeminence. 'Many are called, but few are
chosen.' If I am one of the chosen, I thank God for it, and bless the
erring mortals who wish to make me such by means of the torture of the
rack. Ah, believe me, Catharine, I rejoice to die, for it is such a sad,
desolate, and desperate thing to live. Let me die, Catharine--die, to
enter into blessedness!"

"But, poor, pitiable child! this is more than death; it is the torture
of earth that threatens you. Oh, bethink you, Anne, that you are only
a feeble woman. Who knows whether the rack may not yet conquer your
spirit, and whether you, with your mangled limbs, may not by the fury
of the pain yet be brought to that point that you will recant and abjure
your faith?"

"If I could do that," cried Anne Askew, with flashing eyes, "believe
me, queen, as soon as I came to my senses I would lay violent hands
on myself, in order to give myself over to eternal damnation, as the
punishment of my recantation! God has ordered that I shall be a sign of
the true faith. Be His command fulfilled!"

"Well, then, so be it," said Catharine resolutely. "Do not recant,
but save yourself from your executioners! I, Anne, I, will save you! I
cannot bear--I cannot think of it--that this dear noble form should
be sacrificed to a vile delusion of man; that they will torture to the
honor of God a noble likeness of the same God! Oh, come, come, I
will save you! I, the queen! Give me your hand. Follow me out of this
dungeon. I know a path that leads out of this place; and I will conceal
you so long in my own apartments that you can continue your flight
without danger."

"No, no, queen, you shall not conceal her with you!" said John Heywood.
"You have b