A Queen of Nine Days

by Unknown

The sun is sinking in the west as I lay down my pen, and the shadows fall across the old stone sundial on the lawn, around which Sir Hubert has had inscribed, in letters of gold—

'Hold to the Road that leads Above; and Justice with Prudence by all means pursue.'

And I think that I hear again the sweet tones of my lady's voice saying—

'It is like our dear Lord's teaching, though it was uttered more than four centuries before He came to live as a Man upon earth.'

And those other words, spoken long afterwards—

'A Greater than Plato said, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a Crown of Life." That is the best Crown, Margery.'

THE END

EPILOGUE

My task is done—not brilliantly, not at all brilliantly, but to the best of my poor ability, and I turn away from the thought of this world's little criticisms, which may assail and rend my work, to the consideration of how it looks in my own eyes, how it would look in the serious eyes of Lady Jane, if she surveyed it all as searchingly as she studied her beloved Plato; and lastly, and most importantly, how it may appear in the eyes of our Heavenly Father.