alf the child clinging to a new playmate.

"Ah, Sibyll," she whispered, "do not leave me to-night; this strange
place daunts me, and the figures on the arras seem so tall and
spectre-like, and they say the old tower is haunted. Stay, dear Sibyll!"

And Sibyll stayed.

CHAPTER II. THE SLEEPING INNOCENCE--THE WAKEFUL CRIME.

While these charming girls thus innocently conferred; while, Anne's
sweet voice running on in her artless fancies, they helped each other to
undress; while hand in hand they knelt in prayer by the crucifix in
the dim recess; while timidly they extinguished the light, and stole to
rest; while, conversing in whispers, growing gradually more faint and
low, they sank into guileless sleep,--the unholy king paced his solitary
chamber, parched with the fever of the sudden and frantic passion that
swept away from a heart in which every impulse was a giant all the
memories of honour, gratitude, and law.

The mechanism of this strong man's nature was that almost unknown to the
modern time; it belonged to those earlier days which furnish to Greece
the terrible legends Ovid has clothed in gloomy fire, which a similar
civilization produced no less in the Middle Ages, whether of Italy or
the North,--that period when crime took a grandeur from its excess; when
power was so great and absolute that its girth burst the ligaments of
conscience; when a despot was but the incarnation of WILL; when honour
was indeed a religion, but its faith was valour, and it wrote its
decalogue with the point of a fearless sword.

The youth of Edward IV. was as the youth of an ancient Titan, of an
Italian Borgia; through its veins the hasty blood rolled as a devouring
flame. This impetuous and fiery temperament was rendered yet more
fearful by the indulgence of every intemperance; it fed on wine and
lust; its very virtues strengthened its vices,--its courage stifled
every whisper of prudence; its intellect, uninured to all discipline,
taught it to disdain every obstacle to its desires. Edward could,
indeed, as we have seen, be false and crafty, a temporizer, a
dissimulator; but it was only as the tiger creeps,--the better to
spring, undetected, on its prey. If detected, the cunning ceased, the
daring rose, and the mighty savage had fronted ten thousand foes, secure
in its fangs and talons, its bold heart and its deadly spring. Hence,
with all Edward's abilities, the astonishing levities and indiscretions
of his younger years.