feeling, sensitive woman, who can pour into the bosom of her friend
all her complaint and her wretchedness. Ah, Jane, if you knew how I
have longed for this hour, how I have sighed after you as the only
balm for my poor smitten heart, smitten even to death, how I have
implored Heaven for this day, for this one thing--'Give me back my
Jane, so that she can weep with me, so that I may have one being at
my side who understands me, and does not allow herself to be imposed
upon by the wretched splendor of this outward display!'"

"Poor Catharine!" whispered Lady Jane, "poor queen!"

Catharine started and laid her hand, sparkling with brilliants, on
Jane's lips. "Call me not thus!" said she. "Queen! My God, is not
all the fearful past heard again in that word? Queen! Is it not as
much as to say, condemned to the scaffold and a public criminal
trial? Ah, Jane! a deadly tremor runs through my members. I am Henry
the Eighth's sixth queen; I shall also be executed, or, loaded with
disgrace, be repudiated."

Again she hid her face in her hands, and her whole frame shook; so
she saw not the smile of malicious satisfaction with which Lady Jane
again observed her. She suspected not with what secret delight her
friend heard her lamentations and sighs.

"Oh! I am at least revenged!" thought Jane, while she lovingly
stroked the queen's hair. "Yes, I am revenged! She has robbed me of
a crown, but she is wretched; and in the golden goblet which she
presses to her lips she will find nothing but wormwood! Now, if this
sixth queen dies not on the scaffold, still we may perhaps so work
it that she dies of anxiety, or deems it a pleasure to be able to