suffered what she had made another suffer. It happens that there is no justice whatever in this story, and that it ought never to exist; and whoever knows the history will not blame our said queen at all: and for that reason I wish to tell it for her justification.

Chastelard, then, was a gentleman of Dauphiny, of good family and name-for he was grandnephew on the mother's side of the brave M. de Bayard; and it was said resembled him in figure, for his was medium and very handsome and slender, as M. de Bayard's was said to be. He was very skillful in arms and alert in everything and all polite exercises, as shooting, playing at the palm [ball], vaulting, and dancing. In short, he was a most accomplished gentleman; and as to his mind, it was also excellent, for he spoke very finely and wrote still better things, even in verse, using a very sweet, refined, and careless poesy.

He followed M. d'Anville so called at that time, now the Constable; and when we were with him and the Grand Prior, of the house of Lorraine, to escort the said queen, the said Chastelard was with her, and in that company made himself known to the queen what he was in all gentlemanly pursuits and above all in verses; and among others he made a poem upon her out of an Italian translation, for he spoke and understood it well, which began, Che giova passeder cittadi e regni, etc., which is a very well-written sonnet, of which the substance is this: "What avails it to own so many kingdoms, cities, villages, provinces, to command so many peoples, to make one's self respected, feared, admired, and gazed at by every one, and to sleep a widow, alone, and cold as ice?" He made many other very fine verses, which I have seen in his handwriting; for they have never been printed that I have seen.

Then the queen, who loved letters, and especially verses, and sometimes made fine ones, was pleased to see those of the said Chastelard, and even composed an answer to him; and by that means he made himself welcome to her and often conversed with her. Nevertheless he became secretly inflamed with too hot a fire, without its object having anything to do with it; for who can ward off being loved? Men have loved in times past the chastest goddesses and ladies, and love them still, they have even loved marble statues; but for that reason the ladies are not to blame if they do not remain such. Burn who will, then, over secret fires!

Chastelard returned with all the company into France, much afflicted and disheartened at leaving behind so beautiful a being. At the end of a year the first civil war arose in France. He, who was of the Religion, had a struggle with himself which side he should take; whether to go to Orleans with the rest, or stay with M. d'Anville and with him make war against his religion. The second was too bitter to him, to go against his faith and his conscience; the former, to bear arms against his lord, troubled him greatly: wherefore he resolved to fight neither for the one nor the other, but banish himself from France and go to Scotland, and let those fight who would, and pass the time there. He opened his purposes to M. d'Anville and disclosed his resolution to him, and begged him to write letters in his favor to the queen; this he obtained: and having taken leave of one and another, he departed.

He made and completed his voyage prosperously, since on arriving in Scotland and disclosing his resolution to the queen, she received him humanely, and assured him of being welcome : but abusing that good reception, he wished to assail so lofty a sun that he destroyed himself by it like Phaeton; for impelled by love and madness, he was so presumptuous as to hide himself under the queen's bed, as was discovered when she wished to retire. But the queen, without making any scandal, pardoned him, supporting herself by the good advice which the maid of honor gave her mistress in the Nouvelles of the queen of Navarre [Heptameron], when a lord of her brother's court, slipping through a trap-door which he had purposely made in the wall at her bedside, tried to force her, by which he got nothing but shame and a fine scratching; and wishing to make him smart for his temerity and complain to her brother, her maid of honor counseled her that since he had got nothing but scratches and shame, he had been punished enough: and that thinking to make her honor clear, she would rather dim it,the honor of a lady being of such a value that it ought never to be put in debate, and that the more it is discussed, the more it goes to the world's nose and then into backbiters' mouths.

Our queen of Scotland, being wise and prudent, so passed over this scandal; but the said Chastelard, not content and more than ever frantic with love, returned there a second time, having forgotten his first offense and his pardon. Then the queen, for her honor's sake, and to give no occasion to her women to think evil, and indeed to his people if they knew of

it, lost patience, gave him into the hands of justice, which condemned him at once to have his head cut off, seeing the crime he had committed. And on the appointed day, having been led to the scaffold, he had in his hands the hymns of M. Ronsard; and for his eternal consolation, he set himself to reading entire the hymn on death, which is excellently written and fitting to make one despise death; supporting himself further with another spiritual book, neither by a minister nor a confessor.

After having done his whole reading, he turned toward the place where he thought the queen was, and cried aloud, "Adieu, most beautiful and most cruel princess of the world; and then, with great constancy holding out his neck to the executioner, he let himself be very easily dispatched.

Some have tried to discuss why he called her so cruel, or if it was that she had not had pity on his love or his life. As to that, what could she do? If, after the first pardon, she had given the second, she would have been scandaled everywhere; and to save her honor, justice had to use its right: and that is the end of the story.

MARY'S ESCAPE FOILED.

BY SIR WALTER SCOTT. ·

(From "The Abbot." For biographical sketch, see page 13.)

[After Carberry Height and the flight of her husband, Bothwell, Queen Mary was imprisoned in the tiny isle of Lochleven in Kinross. The Protestant lords sent envoys to force her to sign her recantation. Except for Roland Graeme, the hero of the novel, who partly plays the role of the real Sir James Melville, the scene is historical.]

WHEN Roland Graeme had finished his repast, having his dismissal from the Queen for the evening, and being little inclined for such society as the castle afforded, he stole into the garden, in which he had permission to spend his leisure time when it pleased him. In this place the ingenuity of the contriver and disposer of the walks had exerted itself to make the most of little space, and by screens, both of stone ornamented with rude sculpture and hedges of living green, had endeavored to give as much intricacy and variety as the confined limits of the garden would admit.

Here the young man walked sadly, considering the events of the day, and comparing what had dropped from the Abbot with what he had himself noticed of the demeanor of George Douglas. "It must be so," was the painful but inevitable conclusion at which he arrived. "It must be by his aid that she is thus enabled, like a phantom, to transport herself from place to place, and to appear at pleasure on the mainland or on the islet. It must be so," he repeated once more; "with him she holds a close, secret, and intimate correspondence, altogether inconsistent with the eye of favor which she has sometimes cast upon me, and destructive to the hopes which she must have known these glances have necessarily inspired." And yet (for love will hope where reason despairs) the thought rushed on his mind that it was possible she only encouraged Douglas' passion so far as might serve her mistress' interest, and that she was of too frank, noble, and candid a nature to hold out to himself hopes which she meant not to fulfill.

The sun had now for some time set, and the twilight of May was rapidly falling into a serene night. On the lake the expanded water rose and fell, with the slightest and softest influence of a southern breeze, which scarcely dimpled the surface over which it passed. In the distance was still seen the dim outline of the island of Saint Serf, once visited by many a sandaled pilgrim, as the blessed spot trodden by a man of God now neglected or violated as the refuge of lazy priests, who had with justice been compelled to give place to the sheep and the heifers of a Protestant baron.

As Roland gazed on the dark speck amid the lighter blue of the waters which surrounded it, the mazes of polemical discussion again stretched themselves before the eye of his mind. Had these men justly suffered their exile as licentious drones, the robbers, at once, and disgrace of the busy hive? or had the hand of avarice and rapine expelled from the temple, not the ribalds who polluted, but the faithful priests who served the shrine in honor and fidelity? The arguments of Henderson, in this contemplative hour, rose with double force before him, and could scarcely be parried by the appeal which the Abbot Ambrosius had made from his understanding to his feelingsan appeal which he had felt more forcibly amid the bustle of stirring life than now, when his reflections were more undisturbed. It required an effort to divert his mind from this

embarrassing topic; and he found that he best succeeded by turning his eyes to the front of the tower, watching where a twinkling light still streamed from the casement of Catherine Seyton's apartment, obscured by times for a moment as the shadow of the fair inhabitant passed betwixt the taper and the window. At length the light was removed or extinguished, and that object of speculation was also withdrawn from the eyes of the meditative lover. Dare I confess the fact, without injuring his character forever as a hero of romance? These eyes gradually became heavy; speculative doubts on the subject of religious controversy, and anxious conjectures concerning the state of his mistress' affections, became confusedly blended together in his musings; the fatigues of a busy day prevailed over the harassing subjects of contemplation which occupied his mind, and he fell fast asleep.

Sound were his slumbers, until they were suddenly dispelled by the iron tongue of the castle bell, which sent its deep and sullen sounds wide over the bosom of the lake, and awakened the echoes of Bennarty, the hill which descends steeply on its southern bank. Roland started up, for this bell was always tolled at ten o'clock, as the signal for locking the castle gates and placing the keys under the charge of the seneschal. He therefore hastened to the wicket by which the garden communicated with the building, and had the mortification, just as he reached it, to hear the bolt leave its sheath with a discordant crash, and enter the stone groove of the door lintel.

"Hold, hold," cried the page, "and let me in ere you lock the wicket."

The voice of Dryfesdale replied from within, in his usual tone of imbittered sullenness, "The hour is passed, fair master - you like not the inside of these walls - - even make it a complete holiday, and spend the night as well as the day out of bounds."

"Open the door," exclaimed the indignant page, "or, by Saint Giles, I will make thy gold chain smoke for it!"

"Make no alarm here," retorted the impenetrable Dryfesdale, "but keep thy sinful oaths and silly threats for those that regard them-I do mine office, and carry the keys to the seneschal. Adieu, my young master! the cool night air will advantage your hot blood."

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The steward was right in what he said; for the cooling breeze was very necessary to appease the feverish fit of anger