. "Alas!" whispered she, "do you not then see my mourning
dress? Is it becoming to think of happiness, while the funeral
lamentations have scarcely died away?"

"Queen Catharine," said Archbishop Cranmer, "let the dead bury their
dead! Life also has its rights; and man should not give up his claim on
happiness, for it is a most holy possession. You have endured much
and suffered much, queen, but your heart is pure and without guilt;
therefore you may now, with a clear conscience, bid welcome to happiness
also. Do not delay about it. In God's name I have come to bless your
love, and give to your happiness a holy consecration."

"And I," said Edward Seymour, "I have begged of my brother the honor of
being allowed to accompany him in order to say to your majesty that I
know how to duly appreciate the high honor which you show our family,
and that, as your brother-in-law, I shall ever be mindful that you were
once my queen and I your subject."

"But I," cried Thomas Seymour, "I would not delay coming to you, in
order that I might show you that love only brings me to you, and that no
other consideration could induce me. The king's will is not yet opened,
and I know not its contents. But however it may determine with respect
to all of us, it cannot diminish or increase my happiness in possessing
you. Whatever you may be, you will ever be to me only the adored woman,
the ardently loved wife; and only to assure you of this, I have come
this very day."

Catharine extended her hand to him with a bewitching smile. "I have
never doubted of you, Seymour," whispered she, "and never did I love you
more ardently than when I wanted to renounce you."

She bowed her head on her lover's shoulder, and tears of purest joy
bedewed her cheeks. The Archbishop of Canterbury joined their hands, and
blessed them as betrothed lovers; and the elder Seymour, Earl Hertford,
bowed and greeted them as a betrothed couple.

On that very same day the king's will was opened. In the large gilded
hall, in which King Henry's merry laughter and thundering voice of wrath
had so often resounded, were now read his last commands. The whole court
was assembled, as it was wont to be for a joyous festival; and
Catharine once more sat on the royal throne. But the dreaded tyrant, the
bloodthirsty King Henry the Eighth, was no longer at her side; but the
poor pale boy, Edward, who had inherited from his father neither energy
nor genius, but only his thirst for bloo