As he now gazed at her with warm, passionate, tender looks,
Catharine cast down her eyes, and a deep blush covered her sweet
face.

"Ah, a woman's bashful blushes, what an exquisite sight!" cried the
king, and while he wildly pressed Catharine to his bosom, he
continued: "Oh, are we not foolish and short-sighted men, all of us,
yes, even we kings? In order that I might not be, perhaps, forced to
send my sixth wife also to the scaffold, I chose, in trembling dread
of the deceitfulness of your sex, a widow for my queen, and this
widow with a blessed confession, mocks at the new law of the wise
Parliament, and makes good to me what she never promised."
[Footnote: After Catharine Howard's infidelity and incontinency had
been proved, and she had atoned for them by her death, Parliament
enacted a law "that if the king or his successors should intend to
marry any woman whom they took to be a clean and pure maid--if she,
not being so, did not declare the same to the king, it should be
high treason: and all who knew it; and did not reveal it, were
guilty of misprision of treason."--"Burnet's History of the
Reformation of the Church of England." London, 1681 (vol. i, p.
313)]

"Come, Kate, give me a kiss. You have opened before me to-day a
happy, blissful future, and prepared for me a great and unexpected
pleasure. I thank you for it, Kate, and the Mother of God be my
witness, I will never forget it."

And drawing a rich diamond ring from his own finger, and putting it
upon Catharine's, he continued: "Be this ring a remembrancer of this