was coming; the
Bishop recrossed his legs in a manner that betokened his entire
satisfaction; and, delighted, the mammas and papas whispered together.
But the faces of the nuns betrayed the anxiety they felt. Inquiring
glances passed beneath the black hoods; all the sleek faces grew alive
and alarmed. May was now alone on the stage, and there was no saying
what indiscretion she might not be guilty of.

The Reverend Mother, however, had anticipated the danger of the scene,
and had sent round word to the nun in charge of the back of the stage to
tell Miss Gould that she was to set the crown straight on her head, and
to take her hands out of her pockets. The effect of receiving such
instructions from the wings was that May forgot one-half her words, and
spoke the other half so incorrectly that the passage Alice had counted
on so much--'At last, thank Heaven, that tiresome trouble is over, and I
am free to return to music and poetry'--was rendered into nonsense, and
the attention of the audience lost. Nor were matters set straight until
a high soprano voice was heard singing:

'Buy, buy, who will buy roses of me?
Roses to weave in your hair.
A penny, only a penny for three,
Roses a queen might wear!
Roses! I gathered them far away
In gardens, white and red.
Roses! Make presents of roses to-day
And help me to earn my bread.'

The King divined that this must be the ballad-singer--the beggar-maid
who loved him, who, by some secret emissaries of the Queen, had been
driven away from the city, homeless and outcast; and, snatching his lute
from the wall, he sang a few plaintive verses in response. The strain
was instantly taken up, and then, on the current of a plain religious
melody, the two voices were united, and, as two perfumes, they seemed to
blend and become one.

Alice would have preferred something less ethereal, for the exigencies
of the situation demanded that the King should get out of the window and
claim the hand of the beggar-maid in the public street. But the nun who
had composed the music could not be brought to see this, and, after a
comic scene between the Queen and the Chancellor, the King, followed by
his Court and suite, entered, leading the beggar-maid by the hand. In a
short speech he told how her sweetness, her devotion, and, above all,
her beautiful voice, had won his heart, and that he intended to make her
his