our
modern taste. I remember one narrow, gloomy alley, of boxwood, or yew,
called "Queen Mary's Walk," after bloody Mary, who used to take her
evening exercise here alone, marching slowly up and down in the waning
twilight, meditating, I fear, those frightful persecutions, rackings,
and burnings of the poor Protestants, and trying to steel her heart
against the womanly pity that would creep into it sometimes, in spite
of all the admonitions of Cardinal Pole and Bishop Gardiner, and the
counsels of her cruel husband.

The greatest curiosity of these gardens is a Hamburg grape-vine,
supposed to be the largest in the world. It alone fills a green-house
seventy-two feet long and thirty broad. It is itself one hundred and
ten feet long; and is thirty inches in circumference, three feet from
the ground. It often bears as many as two thousand five hundred
bunches.

From the green-house, we walked down to the Thames, and then returned
through a beautiful avenue of linden-trees, to the east part of the
palace, where there is a fountain and a basin containing gold and
silver fish. Then we whiled away another hour in the grounds, the
"Labyrinth," and under the noble chestnut and lime trees in the great
avenue, which is more than a mile in length, and then the golden day
was over!

THE LADY MARY'S VISION,

_A Story of Hampton Court._

Some ten years ago, there resided for a time, in a pleasant suite of
apartments at Hampton Court, a young and beautiful gentlewoman, who was
greatly beloved by all who knew her, for her goodness and her sweet and
winning ways. Lady Mary Hamilton, or "the Lady Mary," as she was
called by the pensioners and retainers there, was the youngest daughter
of a poor Scottish nobleman, and the widow of a still poorer young
officer. Captain Hamilton, soon after his marriage, was ordered to
join the army in Afghanistan and for several months dared danger and
death, and endured frightful hardships, in that dreadful war against a
treacherous and savage people.

At last, in a skirmish among the mountains, he was seen to fall under
the spear-thrust of a fierce Afghan chief, and was reported as
"killed," though his body was never recovered by his victorious
comrades. It was supposed that the natives had carried him off in
their retreat, to plunder him at leisure.

But the Lady Mary never would give him up as really dead; and though
she was very sorrowful and anxious for him, she could not be persu