'Yet this inconstancy is such
As you, too, shall adore—
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more!'
But I forget, the theme is a forbidden one; and I see, Constance, you do not like my poet, and I have a mind not to admire yours! Ah! poor Lovelace! he might have been my laureate."
"I thought the Lady Frances sighed no longer for a thorny crown."
"I may surely love the poetry of a Cavalier without wishing to be the bride of Prince Charlie. My father's fiat has gone forth against my royal lover's offer, and so I shall be the wife of some staid sober Covenanter, I suppose; that is, if I follow my father's wishes, and marry Will Dulton."
"Better than be the wedded mistress of a dissolute man," said Constance, firmly. "Believe me, Charles Stuart has all his father's weakness without his father's virtues."
"Well, be it so," replied Frances Cromwell: "I did not care; but methinks I should have liked the garniture of a crown and the grasp of a sceptre. You should have been my first maid of honour.—But your pardon, lady fair—you will be the first married, if I can judge from Sir Willmott Burrell's earnestness of late." As she spoke, Constance Cecil grew deadly pale; and, to conceal her emotion, sat upon the step of the Gothic temple before which they had been standing for some minutes. Frances did not observe the change, but heedlessly continued:—"Ah! it is happy for those who can marry as they will, and him they love; to whom the odious Sound of 'state necessity' is utterly unknown."
"And think you," said Constance, in a voice struggling for composure, "think you so poorly of me, that I can will to marry such as Burrell, of my own free choice! Oh! Frances, Frances! would to Heaven the same grave had closed over me that closed over my mother!" She clasped her hands with an earnestness amounting to agony, and there came an expression over her features which forbade all trifling. Frances Cromwell was a warm, cheerful, and affectionate girl; but to her it was not given to understand the depth or the refinement of minds such as that of her friend. Her own home was not a peaceful one, for party spirit, that hydra of disunion, raged and ravaged there, without regard to years or sex. The Protector's most beloved child was known to be faithfully attached to the Stuart cause; while his eldest daughter was so staunch a republican, that she only blamed her father for accepting power bordering so closely upon royalty. This difference occasioned sad and terrible domestic trouble; and the man, feared, honoured, courted by the whole world, ruling the dynasties of kingdoms, could not insure an hour's tranquillity within his own palace walls! Frances, the youngest, interfered the least in their most grievous feuds. She had so many flirtations, both romantic and anti-romantic, to attend to, that, like all women who flirt much, she thought little. The perfect misery so fearfully, yet so strongly painted upon the countenance of Constance, was to her utterly incomprehensible. Had it been the overboiling of passion, the suppressed but determined rage, or the murmuring of discontent, Frances could have understood it, because it would have resembled what she had full often witnessed; but she had never before beheld the struggles of a firm and elevated mind against a cruel and oppressive destiny. Frances Cromwell looked upon her friend for some moments, uncertain what course to pursue. She knelt down and took her hands within her own; they were cold as death, rigid as marble. She bent over her!—
"Constance! Constance! speak! Merciful Providence!" she exclaimed aloud, "What can I do? what shall I do? Barbara! Alas! alas! she hears me not—Dear Constance! This is worse than faintness," she continued, as exertions to restore her proved ineffectual; for Constantia, exhausted by her efforts to appear tranquil, and to chime in with the temper of her guest, until tortured at the very mention of Burrell's name, remained still insensible.
"I must leave her and seek assistance from within," repeated Frances, rapidly unclasping her jewelled mantle, throwing it over her friend, and flying, rather than running, along the shaven path they had so recently paced in gentle converse. No very long time elapsed before the lady returned, followed by Barbara Iverk and another faithful attendant.
"Thank God!" exclaimed Frances, "she must be recovered, for her position is changed." And so it was—the veil of black had entirely fallen off, and her unconfined hair reposed in rich shadowy masses on her bosom and shoulders: one arm rested on her knee, while the extended hand supported her head; the other was open on her lap, and upon its small and transparent palm lay a large locket of peculiar workmanship, set round with brilliants. On this her eyes were fixed; and when her bower-maid, Barbara, endeavoured to rouse her mistress's attention, the first symptom of returning consciousness she gave, was to hide the jewel within her bosom. She appeared like one waking from a long dream. Frances spoke to her in a tone of gentle cheerfulness,—