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his person. The King, taken more and more of his passion, begged and received of Anne a ring from her finger, I doubt not exchanging with it another. But one day, during a game of bowls, Henry, jealous or what not of Wyatt, cried tauntingly to the knight, holding his hand stretched forth the same time, as if pointing to the cast, "I have won, Sir Thomas! I have won!" Wyatt begged to differ from the King, but the latter simply repeated, "I have won, Sir Thomas! I have won!" The knight, surprised, looked first at the King's face and next to his outstretched hand, and recognizing the ring upon the finger, quickly answered, "If your grace permit me measure the cast with this chain," drawing it from his bosom, "it will be perceived the victory is mine." Wyatt attempting to measure the distance, the King furiously kicked the bowl away, and retired in a great passion. Upon explanation with Anne, Henry learned how Wyatt had become possessed of the chain, and was appeased. Thus, it appears, Henry doubted not the lady at a time he might have been excused; nor did he then or after show anger unto the knight. The fact argues that Henry had a firm reliance in Anne, and that he therefore feared not Wyatt; for, much as Henry respected Sir Thomas-which he undoubtedly did-respect had availed nothing before jealousy. Henry believed Anne before marriage: did he doubt her after? I answer-No.

Anne quickly recovered from the confusion her soon-to-be rival had occasioned her. "The chain you speak of Sir Thomas wearing was doubtless mine one time; now 'tis his. Whatever folly the knight may do with it, put it not to my fault." Then, turning to Norris, the Queen demanded, "And my Lord of Surrey, where is he?"

Norris smiled: "Madam," said he, "the Earl is in the Fleet."

"How ?"

The exclamation of the Queen's was but the key-note to a chorus of "Hows," "Whats," and "Ohs!" Norris waited a decent while to let the echo subside, and then - with an infinity of interruptions from his hearers-related the late exploit of Surrey and his friends.

Anne first laughed and then looked grave. beg his pardon of Henry," said she.

"We must

"Yes, yes," chimed chorus, "we must beg his pardon."

"Poor Surrey, in the Fleet!" spoke Anne, musingly. "Poor Surrey!" murmured the others. "Yes; he must be pardoned.

Surrey!" cried the Queen.

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Henry must pardon

Oh, yes! the King must pardon Surrey! he must pardon Surrey!" and the chorus broke forth again.

Norris smiled grimly. There is ever a little bitterness with the best of us, just a dash of envy, a trifle of jealousy, the smallest portion of hate, when our female friends are too anxious over and interested in an absent male one. "And his friends?" asked Norris, after a pause.

"Friends! what friends?"

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They that were with him in his mad freak." "Had he friends with him?"

"I mentioned two."

"True, I forgot," said Anne; "his friends!" "Yes, we forgot his friends," sang chorus.

There was a short silence: Anne played with her child; the ladies whispered or worked at their tambour frames; Norris occupied himself in stroking his moustache and beard. Suddenly he broke silence. "Are they to be pardoned ?"

"Who?"

"Surrey's friends."

"Oh! Sir Henry," said Anne," thank you for reminding me. Why, yes, I suppose so."

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"Yes-we-suppose they must-be-pardoned-too," and chorus was so long drawling out the sentence, that Sir Henry Norris had bowed to the Queen, and retired before its conclusion.

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Alas, alas! our friend's friends are not our friends. What we would do for one out of love, we must do for the other because of duty; and yet it could not be otherwise, or we should have all the world on our hands, if not in our hearts. Horrible idea! when with a few exceptions just to prove rule, men of the present century like their friends, but love strangers. This may appear paradoxical to the little scene just described; but friends' friends are something of which we care nothing. They are that thing of which we say "we know by name." They are not strangers to us; oh, We have heard of them, but have no wish to see. Very likely they are as other men and women, if they were not, we might be curious; as it is, they live and die our

no.

friends friends and in the latter event, we forget for aye a name we never did exactly remember.

Norris and Weston quitted the Queen's presence to join Brereton, who was leaning over the vessel's side watching the mimic waves as they rolled along.

A river has ever been, from the earliest days of poetry, an image of life. Rolling on, yet on, from its infant source; sparkling and shining, leaping like childhood to the sun, and murmuring fitfully against the stays would bar its progress. Over little sands it rolls, now turned aside by some greater stone, to it a mountain; yet on, bright and clear, trickling through flowers and fair plants, till lengthened in its course, and deepening, on it runs twixt banks, yet merry and noisy, its limpid waters hiding nothing. Anon in a broad stream it flows, proud and slow, now bright, now dark. On, yet on clear in its shallows, impenetrable in its depths. By and by, the waters are troubled by the world, they wind by cities and are changed-no longer the bright clear stream, but dull and muddy. Pollution more or less mingles with the tide, and it rolls on a great river black and sullen; and yet a change comes on it, for nighing its end, the waters are bright and clear once more, yet neither of its first clearness nor its first hue-but so it runs into the open sea, and the river is not.

And Anne looking upon her fair child, acknowledged that strange feeling to learn the futurity of one loved. Man is mostly content with ignorance as to his future-the knowledge of another's he might pry into. Women would learn what is to come of themselves as well as others. To them it is sufficient the knowledge is forbidden, and therefore they would know. Man's curiosity is of a worthier growth. As before written, it is the futurity of another he would learn, that knowing he might make void the evils; and yet,how wrong. Education is the only means we possess of touching or biasing the futurity of the young, and yet what system of education is good? the Spartan rule of nakedness? The Roman Catholic method of the confession? by which the youthful penitent-the penitent of twelve years old, male and female, penitents of broken china, or of cupboard embezzlements first hears words he or she understands not, but quickly learns. Words and things, that men and women both great and good, men and women of the world, and in

it, oft live and die, yet never heard much less spoke of. Distant from these two systems is that would teach the young but virtue, nothing but virtue; to the end, that when left alone, he runs directly into vice, not knowing it. Who would not, were he not told beforehand, walk over the dirty places as well as the clean ones, and be surprised at finding the mire sticking to him? But so it is-we can fix no rule to teach the guidance of the future. Should man, the elements-he thinks to control-mock? Should man, the animals admit but a partial dominion? Should man think to direct his fellow? No: man's nature is his own; his fate or future in his own hands; subject to haps and chances, seasons and times. These are the circumstances some men call predestination; and things are so far predestined, as that spring succeeds to winter; summer, spring; autumn, summer; that nights follow days; that it rains, or thunders, or is fine weather. But is it predestined that I, the writer of this, in winter put on my warm clothing, and in summer put it off? No: although 'tis more than probable I do so. It is not pre-ordained, nevertheless. Nor is it that I should go out next time it rains (although I may) and catch cold and die. It would not be predestined any more than my not catching cold and not dying, because of my going out with an umbrella; but it would be folly, or it would be foresight. It would be free agency controlled by circumstance. No, no; man may advise, may counsel, may educate, may do much good, much harm, may be right, may be wrong; may direct a way, but he cannot compel another to adopt In fine, man cannot make man, he can only make some machinery.

he

it.

Predestination failed with the sultans; while it lasted the Turk was invincible. Ignorance steaded the priest a long, long while; but the people got wise, and the priest's power was gone. Predestination has yet existence with the old Turk, who smokes, and says "it was written," while his house tumbles about his ears, and with the morbid Christian, who perverts passages of the Scriptures to every great or trifling event that happens annually. Divination is in the hands of gipsys, and of the three, I think the Turk the most respectable, the gipsy the most clever, and the Christian the greatest fool.

Ignorance and superstition are twin monsters have existed

through ages, and ruled the whiles. But a good knight and true, called the Press, has risen against them, and although fettered from his birth, still has he done good battle with the giants, dealing them lusty strokes, while year by year he relieves him from a link of the chain that binds him. The time will come that the Press shall be free, and then ignorance and superstition will be no more; but till that time comes, ah, me! for the poor writer of the Press-the good knight-he first frees his fellows from bondage, he next preserves to them that freedom, he warns them of dangers from abroad or at home, he teaches them all things, from the knowledge of God to the duty to one's neighbour, from ruling of states to the cares and charges of a householdyet is He, this great teacher, a man unknown. You pass him, perhaps, as you go to business, you jostle him, may be, when pleasure seeking-yet do you know him not. You read of him in a morning, and you profit thereby, and then -you forget him. But let a low-browed, hawk-nosed, vulture-stomach'd being but appear in the street-one who has put half the world into mourning, and caused as many tears as he has spilt blood-and you run after him, you know him, and shout with all your lungs, forgetful of the impost of taxes which you can't pay, and the little taken from those that have least, yet have given most (their issue, that lie on some battle-field)—you run after him, I say, and bellow "the hero." Humph! perhaps he is one. For if the man that destroys be a "hero,” the man that saves, cannot.

What a funny world this is we live on! how it delights in a feather, or a beat of the drum, or the blast of a trumpet. How it believes in tinsel. One of these fine days, I will ring a bell, and my folly to your wit, but I get the better audience in the fair.

But to return to that I have strayed from-not to her mother was the attempted formation of Elizabeth's mind to belong, but to a sterner monitress were she and her sister delivered-Misfortune.

They say the wise men of the world-that youthful sorrows make tender the heart, that cruel natures are rendered gentle (that is, more gentle than they would have been) through early suffering. If this be, what must the original of Mary have been? and what, alas! that I must say it, Elizabeth?

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