sband among the princes of royal blood."

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, with flashing eyes, "if I should ever really be a
queen, I should be prouder to choose a husband whom I might make a king,
than such a one as would make me a queen. [Footnote: Elizabeth's own
words,--Leti, vol. ii, p. 62.] Oh, say yourself, Catharine, must it not
be a high and noble pleasure to confer glory and greatness on one we
love, to raise him in the omnipotence of our love high above all other
men, and to lay our own greatness, our own glory, humbly at his feet,
that he may be adorned therewith and make his own possession what is
ours?"

"By Heaven, you are as proud and ambitious as a man!" said Catharine,
smiling. "Your father's own daughter! So thought Henry when he gave his
hand to Anne Boleyn; so thought he when he exalted me to be his queen.
But it behooves him thus to think and act, for he is a man."

"He thought thus, because he loved--not because he was a man."

"And you, too, Elizabeth--do you, too, think thus because you love?"

"Yes, I love!" exclaimed Elizabeth, as with an impulsive movement she
threw herself into Catharine's arms, and hid her blushing face in the
queen's bosom. "Yes, I love! I love like my father--regardless of my
rank, of my birth; but feeling only that my lover is of equally high
birth in the nobility of his sentiment, in his genius and noble mind;
that he is my superior in all the great and fine qualities which should
adorn a man, and yet are conferred on so few. Judge now, queen, whether
that law there can make me happy. He whom I love is no prince--no son of
a king."

"Poor Elizabeth!" said Catharine, clasping the young girl fervently in
her arms.

"And why do you bewail my fate, when it is in your power to make me
happy?" asked Elizabeth, urgently.

"It was you who prevailed on the king to relieve me of the disgrace that
rested on me; you will also have power over him to set aside this clause
which contains my heart's sentence of condemnation."

Catharine shook her head with a sigh. "My power does not reach so far,"
said she, sadly. "Ah, Elizabeth, why did you not put confidence in me?
Why did you not let me know sooner that your heart cherished a love
which is in opposition to this law? Why did you not tell your friend
your dangerous secret?"

"Just because it is dangerous I concealed it from you; and just on that
account I do not even now mention the name of the loved one. Queen, you
shall not throug