ng to the King's intended rebuke, as what the levity
of her conduct had justly deserved, she extenuated, nay, defended as a
harmless frolic, that which she was accused of. She denied, indeed,
with many a pretty form of negation, that she had directed Nectabanus
absolutely to entice the knight farther than the brink of the Mount on
which he kept watch--and, indeed, this was so far true, that she had not
designed Sir Kenneth to be introduced into her tent--and then, eloquent
in urging her own defence, the Queen was far more so in pressing upon
Richard the charge of unkindness, in refusing her so poor a boon as the
life of an unfortunate knight, who, by her thoughtless prank, had been
brought within the danger of martial law. She wept and sobbed while she
enlarged on her husband's obduracy on this score, as a rigour which had
threatened to make her unhappy for life, whenever she should reflect
that she had given, unthinkingly, the remote cause for such a tragedy.
The vision of the slaughtered victim would have haunted her dreams--nay,
for aught she knew, since such things often happened, his actual spectre
might have stood by her waking couch. To all this misery of the mind was
she exposed by the severity of one who, while he pretended to dote upon
her slightest glance, would not forego one act of poor revenge, though
the issue was to render her miserable.

All this flow of female eloquence was accompanied with the usual
arguments of tears and sighs, and uttered with such tone and action as
seemed to show that the Queen's resentment arose neither from pride nor
sullenness, but from feelings hurt at finding her consequence with her
husband less than she had expected to possess.

The good King Richard was considerably embarrassed. He tried in vain
to reason with one whose very jealousy of his affection rendered her
incapable of listening to argument, nor could he bring himself to use
the restraint of lawful authority to a creature so beautiful in the
midst of her unreasonable displeasure. He was therefore reduced to the
defensive, endeavoured gently to chide her suspicions and soothe her
displeasure, and recalled to her mind that she need not look back upon
the past with recollections either of remorse or supernatural fear,
since Sir Kenneth was alive and well, and had been bestowed by him upon
the great Arabian physician, who, doubtless, of all men, knew best how
to keep him living. But this seemed the unkindest cut of all,