ch can not be related here, but Mary's life was
comparatively peaceful and happy, the pleasures which she enjoyed
being greatly enhanced by the mutual affection which existed between
herself and her husband.

Though he was small in stature, and very unprepossessing in
appearance and manners, Francis still evinced in his government a
considerable degree of good judgment and of energy. His health,
however, gradually declined. He spent much of his time in traveling,
and was often dejected and depressed. One circumstance made him feel
very unhappy. The people of many of the villages through which he
passed, being in those days very ignorant and superstitious, got a
rumor into circulation that the king's malady was such that he could
only be cured by being bathed in the blood of young children. They
imagined that he was traveling to obtain such a bath; and, wherever
he came, the people fled, mothers eagerly carrying off their children
from this impending danger. The king did not understand the _cause_
of his being thus shunned. They concealed it from him, knowing that
it would give him pain. He knew only the _fact_, and it made him very
sad to find himself the object of this mysterious and unaccountable
aversion.

In the mean time, while these occurrences had been taking place in
France, Mary's mother, the queen dowager of Scotland, had been made
queen regent of Scotland after her return from France; but she
experienced infinite trouble and difficulty in managing the affairs
of the country. The Protestant party became very strong, and took up
arms against her government. The English sent them aid. She, on the
other hand, with the Catholic interest to support her, defended her
power as well as she could, and called for help from France to
sustain her. And thus the country which she was so ambitious to
govern, was involved by her management in the calamities and sorrows
of civil war.

In the midst of this contest she died. During her last sickness she
sent for some of the leaders of the Protestant party, and did all
that she could to soothe and conciliate their minds. She mourned the
calamities and sufferings which the civil war had brought upon the
country, and urged the Protestants to do all in their power, after
her death, to heal these dissensions and restore peace. She also
exhorted them to remember their obligations of loyalty and obedience
to their absent queen, and to sustain and strengthen her government
by every