by her death.

Moreover, the king had called his daughter Elizabeth a bastard, and
solemnly declared her unworthy of succeeding to the throne.

Her birthday, therefore, was to Elizabeth only a day of humiliation and
pain. Reclining on her divan, she thought of her despised and joyless
past, of her desolate and inglorious future.

She was a princess, and yet possessed not the rights of her birth; she
was a young maiden, and yet doomed, in sad resignation, to renounce all
the delights and enjoyments of youth, and to condemn her passionate
and ardent heart to the eternal sleep of death. For when the Infante of
Spain sued for her hand, Henry the Eighth had declared that the bastard
Elizabeth was unworthy of a princely husband. But in order to intimidate
other suitors also, he had loudly and openly declared that no subject
should dare be so presumptuous as to offer his hand to one of his
royal daughters, and he who dared to solicit them in marriage should be
punished as a traitor.

So Elizabeth was condemned to remain unmarried; and nevertheless she
loved; nevertheless she harbored only this one wish, to be the wife of
her beloved, and to be able to exchange the proud title of princess for
the name of Countess Seymour.

Since she loved him, a new world, a new sun had arisen on her; and
before the sweet and enchanting whispers of her love, even the proud and
alluring voices of her ambition had to be silent. She no longer thought
of it, that she would never be a queen; she was only troubled that she
could not be Seymour's wife.

She no longer wanted to rule, but she wanted to be happy. But her
happiness reposed on him alone--on Thomas Seymour.

Such were her thoughts, as she was in her chamber on the morning of
her birthday, alone and lonely; and her eyes reddened by tears, her
painfully convulsed lips, betrayed how much she had wept to-day; how
much this young girl of fourteen years had already suffered.

But she would think no more about it; she would not allow the lurking,
everywhere-prying, malicious, and wicked courtiers the triumph of seeing
the traces of her tears, and rejoicing at her pains and her humiliation.
She was a proud and resolute soul; she would rather have died than to
have accepted the sympathy and pity of the courtiers.

"I will work," said she. "Work is the best balm for all pains."

And she took up the elaborate silk embroidery which she had begun for
her poor, unfortunate friend, Anne of Clev