is most charming of women was the destruction of her
lovers: married three times, she had never any happiness as a wife,
but in both the connections of her choice found that she had either
never possessed or could not retain, even for a few weeks, the love of
the men she had chosen, so that Darnley was willing to risk her life
and that of his unborn child to wreak his wrath upon Rizzio, and after
a few weeks with Bothwell she was heard "calling aloud for a knife to
kill herself with." A mother twice, and of a son and daughter,
both the children were brought forth in loneliness and sorrow, and
separated from her early, her son educated to hate her, her
daughter at once immured in a convent. Add the eighteen years of her
imprisonment, and the fact that this foolish, prodigal world, when
there was in it one woman fitted by her grace and loveliness to charm
all eyes and enliven all fancies, suffered her to be shut up to water
with her tears her dull embroidery during all the full rose-blossom of
her life, and you will hardly get beyond this story for a tragedy, not
noble, but pallid and forlorn.

Such were the bootless, best thoughts I had while looking at the dull
blood-stain and blocked-up secret stair of Holyrood, at the ruins of
Loch Leven castle, and afterward at Abbotsford, where the picture
of Queen Mary's head, as it lay on the pillow when severed from the
block, hung opposite to a fine caricature of "Queen Elizabeth dancing
high and disposedly." In this last the face is like a mask, so
frightful is the expression of cold craft, irritated, vanity, and the
malice of a lonely breast in contrast with the attitude and elaborate
frippery of the dress. The ambassador looks on dismayed; the little
page can scarcely control the laughter which swells his boyish cheeks.
Such can win the world which, better hearts (and such Mary's was, even
if it had a large black speck in it) are most like to lose.

That was a most lovely day on which we entered Perth, and saw in full
sunshine its beautiful meadows, among them the North-Inch, the famous
battle-ground commemorated in "The Fair Maid of Perth," adorned with
graceful trees like those of the New England country towns. In the
afternoon we visited the modern Kinfauns, the stately home of Lord
Grey. The drive to it is most beautiful, on the one side the Park,
with noble heights that skirt it, on the other through a belt of trees
was seen the river and the sweep of that fair and cult