The two executioners knelt and prayed her forgiveness.
"I forgive you and all the world with all my heart; for I hope this death will give an end to all my troubles." She then knelt down and commended her spirit into God's hands, and the executioners did their work.
The sad tale is told. All the actors have been nearly three centuries in their graves; but their story shall stir the hearts of men till the world's end.
A BRIDEMAID'S STORY.
A bridemaid! I had become a necessity. A sense of such importance was novel to me. It was a pleasant awakening to a consciousness that I had attained womanhood. To have been a bride would not have filled me with such unmingled joy; for then I might have been thinking over the possibilities of the future. Now I had only to play my part in the bright and bewildering present.
That there had been bridemaids before my time, of the loftiest and of the lowliest degree, from the jewelled princess to the humble dairy-maid, rendered my position none the less novel and refreshing. Then, too, the circumstances of the case were not to be lightly passed over—I had been chosen from among so many whose claims to consideration were far above mine.
An imaginative child always seeks and finds some object in which to concentrate its thoughts and its loves; something real to serve as an embodiment of its ideal fancies. Hence, all the wealth of my fervent nature had centred on Marian Howard.
From earliest childhood I had watched and wondered at her rare and high-born beauty. Every feature in her face seemed to have a distinct and separate fascination, while every adornment of dress that could enhance her varied charms was brought into requisition. To look upon her was a feast of pleasure to my eyes.