se splendid apartments which love had fitted
up for beauty. Her answers to Leicester conveyed these feelings too
bluntly, and pressed more naturally than prudently that she might
be relieved from this obscure and secluded residence, by the Earl's
acknowledgment of their marriage; and in arranging her arguments with
all the skill she was mistress of, she trusted chiefly to the warmth of
the entreaties with which she urged them. Sometimes she even ventured
to mingle reproaches, of which Leicester conceived he had good reason to
complain.

"I have made her Countess," he said to Varney; "surely she might wait
till it consisted with my pleasure that she should put on the coronet?"

The Countess Amy viewed the subject in directly an opposite light.

"What signifies," she said, "that I have rank and honour in reality, if
I am to live an obscure prisoner, without either society or observance,
and suffering in my character, as one of dubious or disgraced
reputation? I care not for all those strings of pearl, which you fret me
by warping into my tresses, Janet. I tell you that at Lidcote Hall, if
I put but a fresh rosebud among my hair, my good father would call me
to him, that he might see it more closely; and the kind old curate would
smile, and Master Mumblazen would say something about roses gules. And
now I sit here, decked out like an image with gold and gems, and no one
to see my finery but you, Janet. There was the poor Tressilian, too--but
it avails not speaking of him."

"It doth not indeed, madam," said her prudent attendant; "and verily
you make me sometimes wish you would not speak of him so often, or so
rashly."

"It signifies nothing to warn me, Janet," said the impatient and
incorrigible Countess; "I was born free, though I am now mewed up like
some fine foreign slave, rather than the wife of an English noble.
I bore it all with pleasure while I was sure he loved me; but now my
tongue and heart shall be free, let them fetter these limbs as they
will. I tell thee, Janet, I love my husband--I will love him till
my latest breath--I cannot cease to love him, even if I would, or if
he--which, God knows, may chance--should cease to love me. But I
will say, and loudly, I would have been happier than I now am to
have remained in Lidcote Hall, even although I must have married poor
Tressilian, with his melancholy look and his head full of learning,
which I cared not for. He said, if I would read his favourite volumes,