good water as this
metropolis, and I do not know where or how you could obtain a better.
I say, therefore, without hesitation, that the water supplied by the
public companies is the best that can be used for the fountains; and,
seeing that it will be twice filtered, and carefully freed from every
kind of impurity by the most perfect chemical and mechanical
contrivances, there need be no hesitation on the part of the most
fastidious in freely drinking at the public fountains."

CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION.

One bright May morning in the year of our Lord, 1445, the streets of
London presented an unusually animated appearance. Here and there were
quaint devices and rare allegories, well pleasing alike to the rude eye
and taste of citizen and peer. From dark lane and darker alley poured
forth swarms eager to behold the stranger, who, young, high-spirited, and
beautiful, had come to wear the diadem of royalty, and to share the
English throne. The land of love and song had given her birth. Her
"gorgeous beauty," as our national dramatist describes it, had been
ripened but by fifteen summers's suns. Hope told a flattering tale. She
discerned not the signs that prophesied a dark and dreary future. A
tempest rudely greeted her as she landed on our shores. Sickness preyed
upon her frame. Those whose fathers's bones were bleaching on the
battle-fields of France murmured that Maine and Anjou, won by so free an
expenditure of English blood and gold, should be ceded to the sire of one
who, dowerless, came to claim the throne, and, as it speedily appeared,
to rule the fortunes, of HENRY PLANTAGENET. In mercy the sad perspective
of thirty wintry years was hidden from her view. She dreamt not of the
cup of bitterness it was hers to drink--how she should be driven from the
land that then hailed her with delight--how all that woman should abhor
should be laid to her charge--how, in her desolate chateau, stripped of
her power, and fame, and crown, lonely and broken-hearted, she should
spend the evening of her life in unavailing sorrow and regret, till, with
bloodshot eyes, and wrinkled brow, and leprous skin, she should become
all that men shuddered to behold. But onward passed the procession, and
smiles were on her lips, and joy was in her heart. Bright was her
queenly eye, and beautiful was her flaxen hair, so well known in romance
or in the songs of wandering troubadour. Around her were the