loset, burned some papers, arranged
others, and then calmly awaited her fate.

During two or three days there were many alternations of hope and fear.
The physicians contradicted each other and themselves in a way which
sufficiently indicates the state of medical science in that age. The
disease was measles; it was scarlet fever; it was spotted fever; it was
erysipelas. At one moment some symptoms, which in truth showed that
the case was almost hopeless, were hailed as indications of returning
health. At length all doubt was over. Radcliffe's opinion proved to be
right. It was plain that the Queen was sinking under small pox of the
most malignant type.

All this time William remained night and day near her bedside. The
little couch on which he slept when he was in camp was spread for him
in the antechamber; but he scarcely lay down on it. The sight of his
misery, the Dutch Envoy wrote, was enough to melt the hardest heart.
Nothing seemed to be left of the man whose serene fortitude had been
the wonder of old soldiers on the disastrous day of Landen, and of old
sailors on that fearful night among the sheets of ice and banks of
sand on the coast of Goree. The very domestics saw the tears running
unchecked down that face, of which the stern composure had seldom been
disturbed by any triumph or by any defeat. Several of the prelates were
in attendance. The King drew Burnet aside, and gave way to an agony of
grief. "There is no hope," he cried. "I was the happiest man on earth;
and I am the most miserable. She had no fault; none; you knew her well;
but you could not know, nobody but myself could know, her goodness."
Tenison undertook to tell her that she was dying. He was afraid that
such a communication, abruptly made, might agitate her violently, and
began with much management. But she soon caught his meaning, and, with
that gentle womanly courage which so often puts our bravery to shame,
submitted herself to the will of God. She called for a small cabinet
in which her most important papers were locked up, gave orders that, as
soon as she was no more, it should be delivered to the King, and then
dismissed worldly cares from her mind. She received the Eucharist, and
repeated her part of the office with unimpaired memory and intelligence,
though in a feeble voice. She observed that Tenison had been long
standing at her bedside, and, with that sweet courtesy which was
habitual to her, faltered out her commands that he would