she observed to her husband, the duke, that I ought not to leave her house, adding, that when it pleased God to call King Edward to His mercy, I ought to hold myself in readiness, as I might be required to go to the tower, since his majesty had made me heir to his dominions. These words told me off-hand, without preparation, agitated my soul within me, and for a time seemed to stupefy me. Yet afterwards they seemed to me exaggerated, and to mean little but boasting, and by no means of consequence sufficient to hinder me from going to my mother."

Poor Lady Jane! she must indeed have had something to bear from her husband's family, or she would not have desired so earnestly to return to the home where she had been so harshly brought up. However, the Duchess of Northumberland positively forbade her to depart, and Jane, perforce, obeyed. But after remaining several days she gained permission to go to Chelsea Palace for a change, this place being then owned by the Duke of Northumberland.

While there the poor victim became seriously ill, and before she had recovered she was summoned back to Sion House, whence she had come to be present at the forging of another heavy link in the cruel chain which eventually dragged her down to her death.

We will give her own graphic description of the scene that awaited her on her return thither:

"When we arrived I found no person there, but thither came directly afterwards, the Marquis of Northampton, the Earls of Arundel, Huntingdon, and Pembroke, who began to make deferential speeches, bending the knee before me, and their example was followed by several noble ladies, causing my cheeks to be suffused with blushes. My distress was further increased when my mother and my mother-in-law entered, and performed to me the same homage. Then came Northumberland himself, and as President of the Council, declared to me the death of the king, demonstrating that every one had rejoiced in the virtuous life he had led and the good death he had died, drawing comfort from the fact that at the end of his life he took great care of his kingdom, praying to the Lord God to defend it from all doctrine contrary to His, and to free it from the evil of his sisters. He signified to him (Northumberland), that he had well considered the Act of Parliament, in which it had been already ordained that whoever should recognize Mary, or her sister Elizabeth, as heir to the crown, were to be held as traitors, seeing that Mary was disobedient to the king her father, and to him, Edward VI., and the duke added that I was the heir nominated by his majesty, and that my sisters were to succeed me in case I had no male heir; at which words all the Lords of the Council knelt before me, exclaiming

that they rendered me that homage because it pertained to me, being of the right line, and they added that in all particulars they would observe what they promised, which was, by their souls they swore to shed their blood and lose their lives to maintain the same, whilst I, having heard all this, remained as stunned and out of myself. I called on those present who saw me fall on the ground, weeping piteously, and dolefully lamenting, not only mine own insufficiency, but the death of the king. I swooned indeed, and lay as dead; but when brought to myself I raised myself on my knees, and prayed to God that if to succeed to the throne were indeed my duty and my right, He would aid me to govern the realm for His glory."

Thus was the crown forced upon the brow of this girl of sixteen; ay, forced, though she wept and swooned at the bare thought of her regal burthen; forced in spite of her tears, and in spite of the physical weakness under which she laboured at the time; FORCED, though every atom of gold and every gem which it boasted should press piercingly down into her throbbing brain, and into the very core of her aching heart; FORCED, though every precious stone in the costly WOE should be as a dead weight to drag her down to the most profound depths of earthly anguish.

Ah, the ghastly, soul-perverting monomania of thirst for gold! MADDEST MADNESS, that in this

case managed to crush out the natural love and yearning of parents for their own offspring; that had power to bereave a nation by laying upon the block the head of the most regal and christianlike princess that, from those days to these of the right womanly and right royal daughters of our own revered VICTORIA and ALBERT, has stood on the records of history, a royal princess almost without a peer; power-this thought is terrible-to imbrue the hands of the thirsters for gold in the blood of one of God's own faithful servants! Oh, infinitely better would it have been for these little great men, if, instead of this, "millstones" had been "hanged about" their "necks," and they had been "cast into the depths of the sea!"

E must now return to Kitty Clive at the time of her mistress's betrothment to

Lord Guildford Dudley.

"The Lady Jane will shortly be given in marriage," her grace of Suffolk vouchsafed to say to the waiting-maid, adding, "I need no further service from you, as your lady will betake herself to the mansion of her noble mother-in-law, where Mistress Ellen and other dames will constantly attend her."

Kitty's eyes filled with tears, and her heart was too full for words; but she curtseyed with fitting respect to the imperious duchess.

"Hast no thanks to offer, girl, for the years of shelter which thou hast had under our roof?"