Then Miss Wimple closed the door and went back to her room, where she sat down on the bed and had a good cry, which was a great comfort.  When, after that, she arose, and, standing before the glass to undress herself, perceived the blood-stains and the rents, she straightway went and brought her work-basket, and, seating herself under the dim lamp, without fear or hesitation cut down the dress, low-neck—­There!—­Then she lay down in the bed and slept sweetly, with a smile on her face.

Ah! cunning, artless Sally Wimple!  No wonder the dashing directness of your character had ever by your neighbors been mistaken for simplicity.  The thing which was easiest for you to do was ever the hardest thing for you to bear.  In the morning, this new Godiva of Hendrik—­not less to be honored than she of Coventry, in all she underwent and overcame—­descended to her shop, “clothed on with chastity”; and then her dreadful trial began.  I claim for her even more merit than the pure heart of the world has accorded to her namesake who: 

                 “took the tax away,
  And built herself an everlasting name,”

by as much as her task was harder, herself more helpless, and her reward less.  Like her of Coventry,

  “left alone, the passions of her mind,

As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till Pity won.”

She said to the World,—­“If this woman pay your tax, she dies.”

And the World mocked,—­“You would not let your little finger ache for such as this!”

“But I would die,” said she,—­“and more,—­I will bear your mocking and your hisses!”

“Oh! ay, ay, ay! you talk!” said the World.

But we have seen already.  She had no herald to send forth and “bid him cry, with sound of trumpet, all the hard condition.”  No palfrey awaited her, “wrapt in purple, blazoned with armorial gold.”  For her, indeed,

  “The little wide-mouthed heads upon the spout,
  Had cunning eyes to see...”

       “...the blind walls
  Were full of chinks and holes; and, overhead,
  Fantastic gables stared.”

She had her low churls, her Peeping Toms,—­“compact of thankless earth,” who bored moral auger-holes in fear, and spied.  Her nudeness was more complete than hers of Coventry, by as much as ridicule is more ruthless than coarse curiosity.

Not merely the delicacy of her “inmost bower,” but all the protection of her forlornness, she exposed naked to the town, to take that tax away; and when it was removed, she could not hope to build herself “an everlasting name.”  Ah, no!  Godiva of Hendrik may not live in any “city’s ancient legend.”  This poor story must be all her monument; let us lay the cap-stone, then.

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