"I will ride after them!" cried the captain.
"I doubt if you will catch them," smiled the princess; for by now the pair had been gone half an hour, and the frontier was but ten miles from the castle, and they could not be overtaken. Yet the captain rode off with his men, and pursued till he met Prince Rudolf returning alone, having seen Monsieur de Mérosailles safe on his way. And Rudolf had paid the sum of a thousand crowns to the marquis, so that the fugitive was well provided for his journey, and, travelling with many relays of horses, made good his escape from the clutches of King Henry.
But the Princess Osra stayed a long time looking down at the water in the moat. And sometimes she sighed, and then again she frowned, and, although nobody was there, and it was very dark into the bargain, more than once she blushed. And at last she turned to go in to the castle. And, as she went, she murmured softly to herself:
"Why I kissed him the first time I know—it was in pity; and why I kissed him the second time I know—it was in forgiveness. But why I kissed him the third time, or what that kiss meant," said Osra, "Heaven knows."
And she went in with a smile on her lips.
MISS TARBELL'S LIFE OF LINCOLN.
The response to our New Life of Lincoln is so extraordinary as to demand something more than mere acknowledgment from us.
Within ten days of the publication of the magazine no less than forty thousand new buyers were added to our list, and at this writing (November 25th) the increase has reached one hundred thousand, making a clear increase of one hundred thousand in three months, and bringing the total edition for the present number up to a quarter of a million.
But even more gratifying have been the strong expressions of approval from many whose intimate knowledge of Lincoln's life enables them to distinguish what is new in this life.