eauneuf for the
choicest that Paris can furnish," said Mary, "but seest thou, none
other mode is so safe for conveying an answer to this suitor of mine!
Nay, little one, do not fear. He is not at hand, and if he be so
gout-ridden and stern as I have heard, we will find some way to content
him and make him do the service without giving thee a stepfather, even
though he be grandson to an emperor."

There was something perplexing and distressing to Cis in this sudden
mood of exultation at such a suitor. However, Parma's proposal might
mean liberty and a recovered throne, and who could wonder at the joy
that even the faintest gleam of light afforded to one whose captivity
had lasted longer than Cicely's young life?--and then once more there
was an alternation of feeling at the last moment, when Cicely, dressed
in her best, came to receive instructions.

"I ken not, I ken not," said Mary, speaking the Scottish tongue, to
which she recurred in her moments of deepest feeling, "I ought not to
let it go. I ought to tell the noble Prince to have naught to do with
a being like me. 'Tis not only the jettatura wherewith the Queen
Mother used to reproach me. Men need but bear me good will, and misery
overtakes them. Death is the best that befalls them! The gentle
husband of my girlhood--then the frantic Chastelar, my poor, poor good
Davie, Darnley, Bothwell, Geordie Douglas, young Willie, and again
Norfolk, and the noble and knightly Don John! One spark of love and
devotion to the wretched Mary, and all is over with them! Give me back
that paper, child, and warn Babington against ever dreaming of aid to a
wretch like me. I will perish alone! It is enough! I will drag down
no more generous spirits in the whirlpool around me."

"Madam! madam!" exclaimed De Preaux the almoner, who was standing,
"this is not like your noble self. Have you endured so much to be
fainthearted when the end is near, and you are made a smooth and
polished instrument, welded in the fire, for the triumph of the Church
over her enemies?"

"Ah, Father!" said the Queen, "how should not my heart fail me when I
think of the many high spirits who have fallen for my sake? Ay, and
when I look out on yonder peaceful vales and happy homesteads, and
think of them ravaged by those furious Spaniards and Italians, whom my
brother of Anjou himself called very fiends!"

"Fiends are the tools of Divine wrath," returned Preaux. "Look at the
profaned sanctuarie