giously
bewitched!

One day it chanced that Sibyll encountered Hastings in the walk that
girded the ramparts of the Tower. He was pacing musingly, with folded
arms, when he raised his eyes and beheld her.

"And whither go you thus alone, fair mistress?"

"The duchess bade me seek the queen, who is taking the air yonder. My
lady has received some tidings she would impart to her highness."

"I was thinking of thee, fair damsel, when thy face brightened on my
musings; and I was comparing thee to others who dwell in the world's
high places, and marvelling at the whims of fortune."

Sibyll smiled faintly, and answered, "Provoke not too much the aspiring
folly of my nature. Content is better than ambition."

"Thou ownest thy ambition?" asked Hastings, curiously.

"Ah, sir, who hath it not?"

"But for thy sweet sex ambition has so narrow and cribbed a field."

"Not so; for it lives in others. I would say," continued Sibyll,
colouring, fearful that she had betrayed herself, "for example, that
so long as my father toils for fame, I breathe in his hope, and am
ambitious for his honour."

"And so, if thou wert wedded to one worthy of thee, in his ambition thou
wouldst soar and dare?"

"Perhaps," answered Sibyll, coyly.

"But if thou wert wedded to sorrow and poverty and troublous care, thine
ambition, thus struck dead, would of consequence strike dead thy love?"

"Nay, noble lord, nay; canst thou so wrong womanhood in me unworthy? for
surely true ambition lives not only in the goods of fortune. Is there
no nobler ambition than that of the vanity? Is there no ambition of the
heart,--an ambition to console, to cheer the griefs of those who love
and trust us; an ambition to build a happiness out of the reach of
fate; an ambition to soothe some high soul, in its strife with a mean
world,--to lull to sleep its pain, to smile to serenity its cares? Oh,
methinks a woman's true ambition would rise the bravest when, in the
very sight of death itself, the voice of him in whom her glory had dwelt
through life should say, 'Thou fearest not to walk to the grave and to
heaven by my side!"'

Sweet and thrilling were the tones in which these words were said, lofty
and solemn the upward and tearful look with which they closed.

And the answer struck home to the native and original heroism of the
listener's nature, before debased into the cynic sourness of worldly
wisdom. Never had Katherine herself more forcibly recalled to Hasti