Bending toward Leicester, until from the low seat she sank unintentionally upon her knees, she prayed with passionate fervour: 

“But shall not your wife, my love, one day soon be surrounded with the honour which arises neither from the toils of the mechanic who decks her apartment, nor from the silks and jewels with which your generosity adorns her, but which is attached to her place among the matronage, as the avowed wife of England’s noblest earl? ’Tis not the dazzling splendour of your title that I covet, but the richer, nobler, dearer coronet of your beloved name, the precious privilege of fronting the world as your acknowledged wife.”

Again, in answer to his flattering evasive sophistries, she asked in a voice whose marvellous modulations in the midst of intense feeling seemed to penetrate every nook of that vast building: 

“But why can it not be?  Why can it not immediately take place, this more perfect uninterrupted union, for which you say you wish, and which the laws of God and man alike command? Think you my unshod feet would shrink from glowing ploughshares, if crossing them I found the sacred shelter of my husband’s name?  Ah, husband! dost blanch before the storm of condemnation, which has no terrors for a wife’s brave heart?  It would seem but scant and tardy justice to own thy wedded wife!”

The earl had led her behind the scenes, and the minister had twice addressed him ere Mr. Laurance recovered himself sufficiently to perceive that his companions were smiling at his complete absorption.

“Why—­Cuthbert—­wake up.  You look like some one walking open-eyed in sleep.  Has Madame’s beauty dazed you as utterly as poor Count T——?”

His wife pinched his arm, but without heeding her he looked quite past her into the laughing eyes of the minister, and asked: 

“Do you know her?  Is her husband living?”

“I shall call by appointment to-morrow, but this is the first time I have seen her.  Of her history I know nothing, but rumour pronounces her a widow.”

“Which generally means that these pretty actresses have drunken, worthless husbands, paid comfortable salaries to shut their eyes and keep out of the way,” added Mrs. Laurance, lengthening the range of her opera glass, and levelling it at a group where the shimmer of jewels attracted her attention.

How the words grated on her husband’s ear, grown strangely sensitive within an hour?

Carelessly glancing over the sea of faces beneath and around him, the minister continued: 

“English critics contend that Madame Orme’s ‘Amy Robsart’ is so far from being Scott’s ideal creation, that he would fail to recognize it were he alive; still where she alters the text, and intensifies the type, they admit that the dramatic effect is heightened.  She appears to have concentrated all her talent upon the passionate impersonation of one peculiar phrase of feminine suffering and endurance—­that