Classic Audiobook Collection - Ophelia, The Rose of Elsinore by Mary Cowden Clarke ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Ophelia, The Rose of Elsinore by Mary Cowden Clarke audiobook. Genre: drama In Ophelia, The Rose of Elsinore, Mary Cowden Clarke reimagines the world of Hamlet by stepping back before Shakespeare's tragedy begins and placing the court of Denmark's most enigmatic young woman at the center of the story. Ophelia grows up amid the glittering ceremony and hidden tensions of Elsinore, where loyalty is demanded, reputations are fragile, and every friendship can become a political liability. As she comes of age, she is drawn into the orbit of Prince Hamlet, whose brilliant mind and uneasy spirit both attract and unsettle her, and she must also navigate the stern expectations of her father Polonius and the watchful pressures of court life. Through Ophelia's eyes, familiar figures appear in new light, and private hopes collide with public duty. Blending romance, intrigue, and psychological portraiture, Clarke explores innocence tested by power, the cost of obedience, and the quiet ways a young woman tries to claim a voice in a world that prefers her silent. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:19:56) Chapter 2 (00:42:50) Chapter 3 (01:05:06) Chapter 4 (01:27:07) Chapter 5 (02:04:14) Chapter 6 (02:29:05) Chapter 7 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor, from the girlhood of Shakespeare's heroines by Mary Cowden Clark. Part 1 O Rose of May, dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia. The babe lay on the nurse's knee. Could any impression have been received through those wide-stretched eyes that stared as wonderingly as if they were in fact beholding amazed the new existence of upon which they had so lately opened, the child would have seen that it lay in a spacious apartment, furnished with all the tokens of wealth and magnificence, which those ruder ages could command. There were thick hangings of costly stuff, to exclude the keen outer air and chill mists of that north climate. The furniture of the room was constructed of the

rare kind of woods, and fashioned with the utmost skill and taste and design then attained. The dogs that sustained the fur clumps blazing on the hearth were of classical form and device, and the andirons on either side were of a no less precious material than silver. The sconces round the apartment were of the same metal, while the spoon, cup, and other utensils appropriated to the infant's use were of gold. Could any dawning sense of external objects yet have made its way to the brain through those wide-stretched violet eyes, they might have noted that a tall figure, of graceful mean, of gracious aspect, frequently came to bend over, utter murmured words of joy

and tenderness, and breathe mother's blessings upon the little baby-head. They might have perceived that another figure of less gentle aspect, but kindly and fond, would come to look upon the little daughter lately vouchsafed to him, and that still another, a young boy, would advance on tiptoe to peep at and touch very carefully the strange baby-sister. Of the large, broad, good-humoured face that more constantly hung over it, of the huge splay hand that enclosed its own diminutive one, in the recesses of the crummy palm, of the white amplitude of warmth and softness and comfort and repose, against which the babe buried its nose and nestled its cheek, and from which it drew forth delicious streams of nourishment, the wide-stretched

violet eyes probably gained clear perception. For they learned to look eagerly for these evidences of the presence, and the minishton of the good peasant woman, who had been engaged to perform the office of wet nurse and foster-mother to the little Ophelia, daughter of the Lord Polonius, and of the Lady Udra. There were extensive gardens belonging to the nobleman's house, and in these the good nurse Batilda would carry her baby charge up and down, during the more genial hours of the day, while by the side of child and nurse gambled the young boy, Laertes. When the violet eyes learned to distinguish objects upon which they rested, they grew fond of dwelling upon

the lively brother, of following his antics, of watching his sports, and then baby would crow and spring, and leap in the nurse's arms with sympathetic delight at his active movements. When the sun faded from the gravel paths and the shadows lengthened, and the watchful nurse knew that the mists and dews of evening were stealing on, to take the place of the earlier afternoon warmth, she would carry her nursling indoors, and lull it to sleep upon her lap, and hushed against her bosom, crooning ends of old-world ditties, and scraps of antique ballads, such as she knew. The Lady Udra's attendant, Crocca, one day saw fit to call the rustic nurse to account, for

the subject of one of these songs, which struck her town-bred notions as something lacking in the matter of decorum. Thou know a cradle-song, or proper nursery rhyme, good Patilda, to chant to my lady's baby? The songs thou choosest for the child's lullaby are none of the most seemly for the purpose, to my poor thinking. I choose them not, answered the peasant. My stock of songs, God wot, is none so large, that I may pick and choose. I'm fain to sing such as I know.

I care not for the sense so that the sound serves to lull my little one. It matters not for the meaning, which is none to her, so that the two soon helps her to keep quiet and to close her eyes." "'There's no knowing how soon a babe may catch a meaning,' said the ladies made, tossing her head. "'Meanings, especially naughty meanings, are sooner caught than you and your country rudeness might suppose, good mistress, Batilda. There's no telling how early a child may spy out wickedness in words.

They're so cute in listening and pretending not to understand, and all the while making out a deal that they oughtn't. There's much more of that going on than you'd think, Mr. Spatilda." I'm a surety. Children are not the only ones to spy out wickedness and catch naughty meanings where no harm's intended, and then making a pretence of over-innocence. The more's the pity," replied the nurse. But as for my poor foolish old songs, I can't think they do mischief to anyone that isn't

set upon seeing more than's meant, let alone a sucking babe that makes out naught of the words but the chime and the rhyme they make. No harm, no mischief!" exclaimed Crocker. Why there's that tawdry nonsense you sing about St. Valentine's Day! I should like to know what you make out of that, good mistress Batilda. I leave it to you to make out what you have a fancy for from it, Mistress Crocker," said the nurse quietly. I can only say, as I said before, no need to mind the words of my song, so that the tune

soothes my baby, no call to take heed of the matter, so that the murmur pleases her. It's no matter to me, and certainly no matter to the child that can't make matter out of it." "'What stupid animals these country folks are?' muttered the waiting-maid. "'Little better than swine, in their brutish ignorance of what's what, and in their obstinate sticking to what they've once said. "'Let them that like to ferret out filth find what they have a mind to in my old songs,' said the nurse to herself. "'Only don't let him go and give their nasty notions to my innocent child.

Who, if ever she should chance to catch up the words by and by, from hearing me repeat him, would only do so like a prattling starling, for the sake of the sound, and without a thought of any bad meaning? Before the little Ophelia could run any risk of learning either words or meaning of the foster-mother's songs, inasmuch as it was before she could speak, the good Batilda's office of wet nurse ceased. She returned to her peasant family, her native country home. While Aphelia's own mother, the Lady Udra, gladly took the child.

of her little girl upon herself. She had hitherto neglected to fulfil the most important maternal duty, solely from the physical cause of disability. Not long, however, did she enjoy this new delight of cherishing, and watching the infant growth of her child. Ophelia was yet a little toddling thing, when her father, the Lord Polonius, received an appointment as ambassador in Paris, and was compelled to quit the Danish court for an uncertain period. So distinguished an honour as this official dignity conferred upon him by his sovereign, was a matter of high self-congratulation to the ambitious courtier, and he determined to fulfil his mission with such pomp, with such unsparing profusion of outlay, as should

best prove how worthy he was, of the office for which he had been selected. He resolved that as the representative of royalty, his travelling appointment should be princely in their richness, their magnitude, and for the like reason his household and retinue, when established in the French capital, should be of even regal magnificence. order the better to carry out his views of making his embassy as complete a semblance of royalty as might be, he determined that his wife should accompany him, remarking that a court without a queen, an embassy without an ambassadress, were shorn of half their splendor and influence. His lady, dreading the lengthened separation from her children which this would involve,

made an attempt to dissuade him from the arrangement, begging to be left behind in Elsinor with her young son and daughter. Until such time as they should be old enough to travel with her, when they could all three join him in Paris together. But Polonius gave several weighty reasons why this could not be done, alleging that the first impression was the most important, that he was convinced greater effect was produced by the presence of a lady, that it attracted other ladies, that the more ladies attracted and attached, the better, inasmuch as the influence of woman's wit and woman's beauty,

had ever been acknowledged to be some of the most potent agencies in a court atmosphere. together with several other sage and worldly observations in support of his views, and ending with an intimation that, in short, it was his will she should go with him at first, and at once. Without further opposition, therefore, to her husband's will, the Lady Udra prepared to obey by making arrangements for the suitable placing of her children, during their parents' absence. For Laertes the boy, there was the protection of his uncle, a wealthy old bachelor and retired general, who found the seclusion and repose of his arm-chair to be the sole refuge for which his wounds and their consequent infirmity had left him fitted.

For the little Ophelia, her mother determined she should be confined to the care of her former nurse, Batilda. She resolved to risk the want of refinement in the peasant home, for the sake of its simple food, its pure air, its kindly hearty foster-care. She trusted to the child's extreme youth, scarce beyond babyhood, for security that she should not acquire coarse habits, or imbibe unseemly notions. She hoped herself to return to Denmark before the time when it was necessary to begin the inculcation of principle, the inspiring of ideas, the formation of heart and mind. Meantime, she thought, health of body,

vigor of frame, activity of limb, the main things to be secured for her child, and this she thought could be best done by sending the little girl to the cottage of Sigurd, and his wife, Batilda. She knew they had children, although they had lost the younger. the one whose early death had procured Ophelia the wet nurse services of the peasant, and she thought with them her own child would be brought up in health and hardihood, in exercise and open-air pursuits, and in kindly affection, even if somewhat roughly and unrefinedly nurtured. The Lady Udra determined to place her child herself in the arms of its foster-mother.

She ordered her litter, and set forth on her short journey, consoling herself with the thought that she should at least see the spot in which she was about to leave her. her youngest darling, where she might picture her to herself hereafter, during the long, tedious period of absence. She did her utmost to combat the sorrowful feelings, the half-defined fears that beset her as the thought of that absence pressed upon her. She strove to dwell upon none but cheerful thoughts and hopeful fancies for the future, that the present moment might remain unclouded in the remembrance of her little girl, who sat beside

her, looking in her face, and asking her questions of the new places and strange objects among which they were passing. She exerted herself to entertain the child, that no suspicion of her own grief might interfere to mar the pleasure and enjoyment of this first journey, so full of delight and curiosity and interest to the little one. At length the excitement, the constant demand upon her attention, the many hours passed in the open air which made its way through the curtain of the litter, caused the little Aphelia to fall into a profound sleep.

Then the lady allowed herself to drop back among the cushions, and give way to her at the thought of the parting that was so soon to come, between her and her child. Weeping, and in silence, the poor mother travelled the remainder of the way, praying earnestly. All that she saw at the cottage of Batilda confirmed her in the previous conviction she had felt, that its advantages would outweigh its disadvantages. It was a clean, wholesome place. Its inhabitants were homely, but kindly, and the Lady Udra felt that her child would be healthfully and affectionately tended.

the two great requisites at her age. She found, too, that the little Ophelia's chief companion would be Jutha, the only daughter of the peasant couple, a young girl of some fifteen or sixteen years of age, of the most winning appearance, gentle-mannered, sweet-tempered, and extremely beautiful. This afforded peculiar comfort to the Lady Mother, as she knew how attracted children are by beauty, and how happy their existence is made by gentleness, and even temper, in those who have charge of them. To Jutha, therefore, she especially recommended the care and tendance of her babe, knowing

how superfluous it was to bespeak more of that, which already so lavishly flowed and devoted affection towards it, on the part of the good nurse. And then the mother, assisted by these two, who were in future to supply her place, laid the sleeping babe in the rude wooden cot, and took a weeping farewell of her treasure. "'Let not the hot tears fall on the babe, my lady,' whispered the foster-mother. They'll disturb her, and they drop upon her face. A mother's tears are not to be felt without bail and smart, even by one so young. Besides, parting tears bring no good luck.

They're no blessed shower to sprinkle your babe with. Let her have a kiss and a smile, and you can muster one, my lady, as a keepsake for the child, until you come back to give her kisses and smiles the whole day long, as plenty as lips can give them. An earnest pressure of the nurse's arm told how well the kindly intent of her words was understood by the lady. By a strong effort she succeeded in mastering her grief sufficiently to bestow a better omen caress upon her child. The last kiss she gave it, as it still lay in a deep sleep, was almost cheerful, for she cast her eye up hopefully, and commended her little one to heavenly guardianship.

Over the face of the babe as it slumbered crept a soft answering smile, and then the mother, accepting the angelic token, turned silently away, and stepped into a litter, more serene at heart than she could have hoped. For some hours after her mother had left her, the unconscious Aphelia slumbered on. The journey, the passing through the air, caused her to sleep soundly, and there she remained, perfectly still, drawing soft, regular breathings, with one hand beneath the peachy cheek, the other lying plump and dimpled and white on the coarse coverlet. The rough wooden cot in which she lay had been the resting-place of all the peasant babes

born there in succession. It was rudely fashioned, but strong and safe, raised. away from the ground upon high legs, which prevented the hostile approach of any wandering cat or other more formidable animal. It was furnished with bedding, coarse and homely, but clean and sweet-scented from the open bleaching. And, by the care of Jutha, whose pride it was to see it always kept neat and nice, a pretty object in the family sitting-room. As Sigurd and his two eldest sons, Harold and Ivar, came in from their daily labour at Eventide, they went and peeped at the little stranger who had become their inmate. Sigurd said some kind words

to his wife Patilda, of his being glad she had the little lady-babe to take the place of the one she had lost, and that it would do them both good to see the cot filled once more. The two tall lads, who looked like friendly ogres, or good-humoured giants, looked at the sleeping child as if she had been a young bird, or a half-hidden spring-flower nestling beneath a hedge. What a bit of a thing she be! She looks as easy to be blown away! "'Easy to be looked through as sweet and as blooming as a handful of rose-leaves, don't she?' quoth Harold. "'Aye, she do,' said Ivar. "'She scarce looks like a baby such as you or I once was. What a pretty creature to-is!'

The family sat down to their evening meal, while Batilda showed her husband the purse of money in the presence the Lady Udra had given them to take charge of her child, told him of the engagement she had made to forward them each month a sum for its maintenance, that the lady wished them to increase their own comforts at the same time, and that, in consequence, she, Batilda, had provided an extra supper for them to make a sort of feast, in celebration of her own little lady-baves coming among them. Meanwhile, the infant Ophelia continued to sleep on. But as one of the good-humoured giants happened to forget himself, and give a louder laugh than he had hitherto done, the sound disturbed her. She turned, and opened her eyes, and lay

awake. She was none of those fretful children, who the very first thing they uniformly do upon waking from sleep is to roar. On the contrary, she lay silent and still for a moment or two, and then, raising herself softly against the side of the cot, rubbed her eyes, and looked over. It was a strange scene she beheld, quite different from anything that had ever met them before. Instead of the spacious apartment lighted by silver sconces, and hung with rich tapestries, there

There was a rafter low room, a rough deal table, round which sat some uncouth figures on wooden chairs, eating by the light of a single oil-fed iron lamp. There was an elderly man with a weather-beaten face, and grisly locks. There was an elderly woman, whose face seemed known to the child who was staring at them. There were two very tall young men with bushy beards, rough hair and good-natured faces. There was a boy with large, hairy hands, a fell of shock hair upon his head, shaggy eyebrows, from beneath which gleamed a restless pair of gray eyes, and a huge bare throat that swelled and moved, and showed the big morsels which he was shoveling into his mouth, as they

made their way along the gullet to the stomach. The staring baby's eyes, after dwelling some time with a kind of uncomfortable awe upon this object, saw lastly that there was another figure at the table, that of a young girl, beautiful and pleasant to look upon. The little Ophelia was still silently gazing upon all this, when the hairy boy gave a grin, mutely writhing his face, and then he pointed stealthily towards the cot, saying in a low growl, singularly harsh and discordant, though not loud. See!—little court-ladies awake! "'My baby awake, and I not notice it!' exclaimed Batilda, about to hurry towards the

cot, in fear that the child would cry and be startled at finding itself among strangers. "'Let her be a bit,' said Sigurd, laying his hand on his wife's arm. "'And let's see what she'll do. She don't seem a bit scared like at all us new faces. On the contrary, the child seemed entertained, and continued to look from one to another, patting her hand on the side of the cot, and humming a little song to herself, they all watching her the while with quiet, amused glances. By and by she drew a long breath, looked around, and said,

Mama! Batilda and Jutha now both went towards her, doing their best to distract her attention from the thought, which had at length evidently struck her. the facile spirits of childhood, this was no difficult task. She was brought over to the table to take her first rustic meal of bread and milk, which she did with much relish. Despite the absence of the gold service which had hitherto administered her refection, and with much apparent contentment, leaning against the familiar bosom of her nurse, frolicing and making acquaintance with the smiling beauty of Jutha, and graciously allowing the burly peasant sigurd to curl her miniature

hand round his great big horny forefinger. In short, the little lady-bate, seemed at once to take to her foster family had make herself at home with them. End of Part 2 of Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor. This Libravox recording is in the public domain, recording by Elizabeth Clet. Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor, from the Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines by Mary Cowden Clark. Part 2. After this inaugural meal, however, when Batilda, as a matter of course, had taken charge

of her nursling, Jutha contrived to secure the exclusive care of the child from that time forth. She had it to sleep with her in her own little bed, the wooden cot serving for a day-couch merely. She fed it, she washed and dressed it, she amused it, she danced and tossed it, she held it on her knee when she sat, she carried it about with her when she went out. She dedicated herself entirely to its comfort and happiness, and made it in return her own joy and delight. She would have been its servant, if such willing ministry as hers could be called servitude. She would have been its slave, if such voluntary bondage as hers could be slavery.

As it was, she was the little creature's fond, devoted girl mother. She had that peculiar affection which young girls have for a baby, the childish, fondling, protective feeling, mingled with a sense of power. as towards a doll, or a plaything possession, the tender, thoughtful solicitude, the instinct of motherly feeling, as towards a little being dependent on her for life and welfare. On the morning after Ophelia's arrival at the cottage, she was sitting on the young girl's knee, in that half-drowsy state of quiet which is apt to succeed a violent game of romps. Tired with laughter, panting with exertion, she lay back to enjoy complete rest and silence, While her eyes fell dreamily upon a figure on the other side of the room, it was that of the

hairy, loutish boy. He was lying, half crouching, half kneeling in a recess in the wall opposite, killing flies. As the insects buzzed and flitted to and fro, he eyed them from beneath his shaggy brows, with snorting eagerness, and tongue out-lawling, ever and anon taking aim with his hairy paw, And at each successful dab that sent a crushed and mangled fly to swell the heap which already lay there, the lout gave a grin. Sometimes he would chop among the mound of dead, with a knife that lay beside him. Sometimes he would seize one of the living ones by the wing, or the leg, and hold it between

finger and thumb, watching its buzzing struggles, and grinning at its futile flutterings. Then let it go again, to pounce upon and deal at its death-blow. The child lay looking at him in a sort of bewitched inability to remove her eyes from an object that filled her with uneasy wonder. While Jutha, accustomed to the uncouth cruelty of her idiot brother, Ulf, had not perceived that the child's attention was fixed upon him. Presently Batilda's voice sounded from an inner room, desiring Jutha to come and help her with some household matter that she had in hand. Jutha placed the little Ophelia softly on the floor, put some playthings near her, and bat her sit still for a few minutes till she came back.

The child sat, with her eyes unmoved from the fly-killer. Presently he turned and spied her. He gave one of his silent grins. "'Are you one of the elf-folk?' he said. "'No answer.' "'Or the trolls?' asked he again. "'No answer.' "'You're little enough, and pretty enough.

But I remember you're the lulls.' you're the little court lady." He continued to stare down upon her, grinning, as she kept her eyes fixed upon him. "'Come to the bear!' he exclaimed presently in his discordant tones. "'Come here and shake hands with me.' No answer but a shake of the head, as she eyed the huge paw held out to her. "'Come to the bear, I tell ye,' growled he. "'A shan't ye ye ye ye ye, only hug ye. Come to the bear.' "'No,' desperately.

with a more vehement shake of the head. What have I threw this at you, and knocked off your legs like one of them? said he, pointing with his knife to the heap of dead and dying flies stripped of their legs and wings. Ophelia gave a startled scream. In Ranjuta and her mother. Little court-ladies proud, and won't shake hands with Ulf the bear, he said, lolling out his tongue and grinning. What have you been about, brute?

said Batilda. Frightening my baby, I shouldn't wonder. Take care how you ever do that once for all, mind, or I'll beat you as long as I can stand over you. And that ain't long now, grantee. I get bigger and beyond your strength. You hurt your own hands more than you do my shoulders when you thump me now. You limb, said his mother, shaking her fist at him.

But mind my words. You dare not frighten my baby. and if you ever do, it'll be the worse for you. She's the great Lord, Polonius child, sent here to be taken care of, not to be harmed or frighted, and he'll punish you if I can't, should his child be hurt. I didn't want to hurt her. I wanted to hug her, and she wouldn't let me. Don't touch her at all, Ulf, dear, to hurt or to hug her, said his sister, Jutha.

She don't know that our bear's hugs are harmless. She don't know that you're called in sport, Ulf the bear. Let her get used to you before you try to make friends with her. She got used to me before she'd come to me from Mother, you know, last night. You always make me do what you will, Jutha," grunted Alf. But I don't mind pleasing you. You please me. And give the bare things he likes.

Sweet food. Good eating. Sigurd's cottage was situated in a pleasant spot, one of the most fertile in all the island. It overlooked a green valley, emboomed in swelling hills, and took Towards the northeast it was screened by a thick and lofty forest of primeval trees. The soil in the immediate neighborhood of the cottage was favorable to vegetation, but among the hills it was rocky and sandy, more in keeping with the prevailing character of Danish ground.

The air was generally temperate, though moist, being subject to mists, which in the more inclement seasons became dense fogs, and in the winter there were fierce winds with frequent snow, pale and sleet. But during the summer in autumn months the climate was far from ungenial, and Jutha took care that her charge should then enjoy as much of the open air as possible. They would go forth at quite early morning, and with some food in Jutha's basket, would ramble abroad all day long. Sometimes they made exploring expeditions among the hills, now stopping to sit among the craggy rocks, now loitering in some curious cavern or grotto, watching the plashings and oozings of the water that made

its way through crevice and fissure, down-dropping amid the moss and lichens, and long stalactites, and bright spars that be hung the roof and sides. Sometimes they would wander in the green depths of the forest, and sit on the moss-grown gnarled roots of some old oak or elm-tree, or beneath a spreading beach, or tall feathery ash, while the young girl-mother would bid the child mark the shape of the leaf, and branch, and bark and bow, of rugged trunk and smooth bowl, until she learned to know tree from tree, and to amuse herself by distinguishing one kind from another. Jutha would point out, with rustic taste, the luxuriant masses of foliage that enriched

the monarch oak, the noble strength and amplitude of its sturdy body, the vigorous growth of its giant arms, the strange, grotesque forms into which its ramifications spread, in sinuous and angular branches, the deep indentation of its leaves, the curious cup and smooth fruit of its acorns, the mottled red and white of its apples, the pearly berries of its parasite mistletoe. She would show her the straight, smooth-rinded stem of the beech-tree, and how the pointed, glossy leaves grew in palmated branches, and flat, fan-like sprays, ever up-inclined, like huge sylvan hands raised heavenward. She told her witness, was the stately elm, with its graceful height and amplitude of leaf and bough. She taught her to know

the towering ash, with its light-waving plumes of green. The birch, with its penciles-sweeps of slender twigs be hung with small round leaves, the alder and elder, with their close dwarf clusters, the firs and pines with their upright stems, brown-cooned and sober in the sullen season, emerald tufted and cheerful in spring-time. The sallow, with its downy Katkins, the willow with its sad drooping tresses mirrored in the stream. She would take her to Bowery thickets in the wood, where the pansy and the columbine grew wild, and they would peep among the grass, for shy lurking violets, and pile up their basket with bright daisies, and bring home roots of rosemary, fennel, and rue, for the herb corner of their garden. Sometimes

Jutha would lead the little one as far as the seashore, where they would pick up shells, as they strayed along the smooth sand. And when the billows came tumbling in, crested with foam, rolling over one another in huge, monstrous frolic, like lion whelps at play, and when the sea-breeze blew freshly, and the spray flew over the rocks, bounding and tossing and breaking against them, flinging itself wildly apart and abroad in silver showers, as it caught the gleaming sunlight, the young girl would tell the child how these vast waters of the sea, that now looked so bright and gay, grew dark and threatening and angry when the stormy winds of the north lashed them into fury. She told her of the adventurous men who put forth in search of the fish that abounded on these shores.

She told her how they brave the dangers of shoals, sunk in rocks, banks of quicksand and whirlpools, to gain a bare livelihood, and how sometimes their boats were sucked in, and buried beneath the waves that now looked so buoyant and sparkling. Then murky, tumultuous, menacing, fraught with danger and—and doom. For a few moments the little Ophelia would stand with her eyes fixed upon the wide expanse of sea, surging and heaving and swelling before her, while a feeling of awe would creep over her the thought of a watery death, of the whelming billows, of the down-sinking struggle, of

the stifled breath, of the stopped sight and hearing, of all the heart-despair of those poor drowning souls of whom she heard tell, the brave fisherman. Then, with the true happy ease of childish spirits, incapable of long-dwelling upon a mournful idea, she would turn once more to her shell collection, admiring their pretty colours and curious shapes, and putting some of the larger ones to her ear, that she might listen to the sea roaring within them, as it were distant, yet close beside her. These rambles abroad with Jutha were the pleasantest periods of the little Ophelius sojourn, among her foster family.

When she was at the cottage itself, she was dull, uncomfortable. uneasy, with a vague feeling of disquietude and timidity, almost amounting to a sense of harm and danger. She felt herself strange and apart among so many people no-wise suited to her. After the first interest and curiosity excited by the vision of the little lady among them, Sigurd and his two elder sons, Harold and Ivar, took little notice of her, beyond a passing nod, or a good-humoured grin when they were at home, which was not often or for long. They rose before it was well-nigh light, and were out and off to work by daybreak, taking

with them the means for their noontide meal, and returning to the cottage only in time for the supper, which immediately preceded their retiring to rest. Batilda was ever occupied with household drudgery, in which she frequently enlisted the services of Jutha, so that neither from the nurse or her daughter could the child obtain much companionship when within the house. She was thus thrown entirely upon her own resources, and these were few women. who are none for procuring entertainment, never having learned to play or to amuse herself from any child of her own age. Children, from each other, learn the sports, as well as gain

the ideas proper to their time of life, and it is seldom that a solitary little one either thinks, acts, or amuses itself, like those who have been brought up in the society of others. She would, for the most part, when at the cottage, sit still, watching Ulf, the idiot boy, with a sort of helpless, fascinated, involuntary attention. She had never been prevailed upon by his attempted advances towards an intimacy between them, any more than on the first morning when she had observed his hideous sport, and he had sought to lure her towards him to be hugged. But although she would never go close to him, or suffer him to approach her,

yet she seemed to derive a sort of desperate pleasure, and uncomfortable gratification, a strange, half-excited, half-dreading enjoyment in hovering about his vicinity, watching fearfully and wonderingly his uncouth ways. She looked tremblingly loath at the very time she gazed upon him, shrinking and diverse while she hung about near his haunts, but it seemed as if she could not refrain from noting what possessed such mingled attraction and repulsion for her. It was with a kind of dismayed interest that she would stand aloof, silently,

or sit perfectly still and motionless, to watch with fixed eyes and suspended breath the ugly odious ulf. Once he was squatting near the hearth with a huge foot clasped in each of his large hairy hands, his chin resting between his knees, his leering bloodshot eyes staring greedily towards a string of small birds, which were dangling to roast by the wood-embers. "'Have some,' said he abruptly, turning to the child, as he became aware of her presence. "'They'll soon be done.' The little Ophelia shook her head.

"'But they're nice, I can tell you. They're nice to sing. but they're nicer to eat. And he smacked his great broad lips that were drawn wide from ear to ear. Ophelia shuddered. Hark! how they frizzle! said he, and his large flapping ears moved and shifted as he spoke. Sniff! How savory they smell! And the black pristly nostles gaited and expanded,

while the blood rushed into his face, as was its wont, when he felt pleasure, and all the lines of his countenance were contorted, writhing to and fro, as he gave his peculiar silent grin. Presently he clutched the roast in his fist, and exclaiming, "'They're done! They're done!' held it out towards the little girl, repeating, "'Have some? You'd better!' While his eyes gloated beneath his shaggy brows at her and at the viands. "'Isn't it too hot for you to hold?' asked the little Ophelia, as if she couldn't help

putting the question, from wonder to see him grasp the burning food. food. Ha, ha! the bear's paws too tough to be scalded, and I like my victuals hot," said Ulf, thrusting one of the birds into his mouth whole, crunching it through, bones and all, and then bolting it at one gulp. As the child listened to the noise he made, his fangs champing into the bones and mangled flesh, and looked at the savage greed with which he crammed, she thought he seemed some wild beast ravening his prey.

was something cruel and malicious in this idiot boy's mode of doing even simpler things than eating singing birds, or killing flies, which gave an air of horrible meaning in the little girl's eyes to his acts. She saw him once tearing up a rose, and it seemed a tyranny, and a barbarity, as if inflicted on a sentient creature. Leaf after leaf fell, as if they were rent limbs. When he held up the bare stalk, the stripped calyx and yellow centre looking like a skeleton, he twitched out the golden stamens as though they were eyelashes, or teeth.

He appeared to take a ferocious delight in ripping up and destroying flowers, and would pluck off the winged petals from sweet-peas, as if he loved to deprive them of their seeming power of fairy flight. The vindictive satisfaction with which he exercised this power upon things of beauty and fragility, and the air of triumph with which he gloated over his work of ravage, as he leered at her after each feat of the kind, may the little girl always feel somehow as if she were herself the bird, or the fly, or the rose, or whatsoever other object might chance to be the victim of Ulf's destructive propensity. And yet he expresses liking for her, not enmity, but it seems to her

as if his liking were destruction. More than ever she shrinks from his approaches, yet still she cannot resist watching him. Dread and disgust, she feels, but with all a strange irresistible excitement, which impels her to look upon what she fears and loathes. However, this is only when bad weather keeps her indoors. When the sky is clear, and neither snow falls nor wind howls, nor mists hover, nor rain showers threaten, the little Ophelia coaxes Jutha abroad, and again they sally forth together for a long ramble

through forest, field, or valley, among the rocks or along the seashore. And then the young girl amuses the child with telling her quaint tales and singing her old ballads, such as she is heard from her mother. There is one strange legend of a princess, who is shut up by the king her father in a high, strong tower, to be safe from the bold seeking of an adventurous young knight who loved her well, but who had no other inheritance than his good sword and his brave spirit, to entitle him to match with one of so high degree. No wise daunted by the difficulty of obtaining his mistress, the knight-lover set forth

for the strong tower, resolved to try a fortune in his own valour, might be able to be not avail to rescue her thence. His road lay through a wild district where the storm-gods have their dwelling. He encountered successively Snorro, the divinity who holds the snow, hail and sleet at his command. Frore, he who scatters the crisp and sparkling rhyme upon the branches of trees, hangs frost diamonds upon the leaves and weeds and upon every blade of grass, and bedrops the eaves of houses and roofs of cottages, and mouths of caverns with long, slender, downpending icicles. Drondor, he who bids the cataracts take their rushing leaps over crag and fell, and the

mountain torrents their roaring, tumultuous course through rift and gully, sweeping all before them. And lastly he met Dumb Brunderad, the mighty ruler of the thunder, the dread-wielder of the destroying bolts, the speeder of the fatal lightning-stroke. But not all the terrors of the storm-gods, not even the flashing glance and fire-darting nostrils of the thunder-ruler, who rolled angrily and threateningly by in his war chariot, casting furious glances, and hurling scoffing words at the daring mortal who ventured thither, could cause the brave heart of the night to blench one jot in its stout courage and determination.

He restored the fierce glance, and gave back defiant words, in reply to the storm-god's contemptuous ones, saying that all the terrors of earth, air, fire, water, of the sky above and of the dark regions below, would vainly strive to conquer his resolution, or to extinguish his love. That so long as life and limb were uninjured, his spirit would remain unvanquished, persisting still in its purpose to win his mistress, or die in the attempt. The storm-gods burst into a loud peal of mirth, that shook the surrounding hills. They could not but laugh to hear the puny mortal declare his small, mighty will in opposition to theirs.

The hearty laugh exploded with a crash, that sent a thousand. echoes roaring through upland and valley, while Dumbrunderad swore that the human pygmy was a fine fellow of his inches, and showed a spirit becoming a better race, that for his part he knew how to allow for these fiery natures, hasty in their anger, prompt in their deeds, indomitable in their will, inevitable in their undertakings. He vowed that so far from resenting the knight's defiance of his and his brother-storm-god's power, that he applauded his ardor of courage and of love, and that it deserved the assistance should receive.

At first the night thought this promise of friendly aid and protection was strangely evinced, for there suddenly arose a tempest of such violence, that it seemed threatening to carry all before it to destruction, himself included. A hurricane of wind tore up trees by their roots, and scattered them far and wide. The torrents and cataracts pelted down the hills, as if they would have inundated the whole face of the plain. The heavens poured forth a deluge of snow, rain, sleet, and hail, all at once, while incessant Claps of thunder rent the air, and sheets of lightning glared fearful illumination upon all this

scene of gale and tempest. But when at length the night succeeded in forcing his way through the storm-blast, he found that it had done its master's work of beneficent help right well. For upon reaching the strong high tower, he saw it levelled to the ground by a friendly thunderbolt, which had struck it, leaving his mistress unharmed, who stepped forth from the ruins, flung herself into his arms, and fled with him that instant to a far distant country, where they lived happily thenceforth, safe from royal tyranny.

There was another story of Juthas, which told of a wicked steward, who, left in his master's castle with charge to watch and guard from harm the Lord's only child, a passing fair daughter, proved false to his function of protector, stole the lady away from her home, and would fain of forced her into a marriage with his own unworthy self. But the unhappy maiden, resolved to die rather than suffer the degradation. of such a union, flung herself from the window of the high chamber in which the false steward had confined her, and so untimely perished. Then the Lord, her father, returning home to his castle, and hearing how it had been despoiled

by the miscreant in whom he had confided, ceased not until he had discovered his wronger, whom he caused to be tried for his heinous offences, and sentenced to death. In consideration of his treacherous breach of trust, and the death his deed had caused, the The false steward was broken on a wheel, and died in cruel torture." End of Part III of Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor. This Librevox recording is in the public domain, recording by Elizabeth Clutt. Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor, from the Girlhood of Shakespeare's heroines by Mary Cowden-Clark.

Part three. One fine noon day, when the heat of the sun had compelled Juthah and the Lerciutto and the little girl to seek the shade of the forest depths. Ophelia interrupted the story then telling, by exclaiming suddenly, look, Jutha, see there! Jutha! looked in the direction of the child's pointing finger, and saw, to her surprise, a milk-white horse, saddled and bridled, coming leisurely along beneath the trees, cropping the grass, and looking as if he had strayed from his fastenings. "'The beautiful creature!' exclaimed Jutha, rising from the seat Ophelia, and she occupied on the spreading root of a tree. What costly housings it has! It looks like a fairy horse, the

steed of some of those gallant princes in the stories. And it is gentle, too. See how it lets me lay my hand upon its bridle and pat its neck. It is well trained, and belongs to some noble master, doubtless. But who can he be? And where? The young girl held the rain, and looked about her in perplexity. While the white horse tossed its arching neck, nearly jerking the curb from her hand, pawed the ground, and neighed shrill and loud. "'Look, Jutha!' once more exclaimed the child. "'There among the trees on that mossy slope! Do you see?' "'He is sleeping,' said Jutha in a hushed answer, and soundly too. Not even the

neighing of his good horse can disturb him. The girl and the child crept a little nearer to the figure they saw lying there. It was that of a man, in a rich hunting-dress. His plumed hat had been placed so as to shade his eyes during sleep, but it had fallen partly aside, and showed a face finely shaped, with features marked and handsome. One hand supported his head, but the other, ungloved, was white, bore more than one jeweled ring, and lay carelessly near the half-open bosom of his vest, as if it had slipped thence since slumber. "'A fit owner for such a gallant beast!' murmured Jutha, as she turned to pat once again

the neck of the steed. For the docile creature had suffered the young girl to retain his reign, and to draw him after her to the spot where his master lay. Sure, a prince! No less! Such a prince as they tell of in the wondrous tales I have heard! How passing beautiful he is! What can he be?

Where can he have come from? From fairyland! Or from the court, surely, added she, as she looked again upon the handsome stranger. Are there such princes at the court? whispered Ophelia. "'I came from the court, they say, but I remember none such princes there. I remember no one but my own papa,

my dear mother, my brother Laertes, and those but faintly.' "'You were little more than a baby when you left them to come hither. It can hardly be that you should remember them,' said Jutha. "'But I do,

though only dimly, as if they were a long way off in the distance, and so they are,' added the little Ophelia musingly. They are across the wide, wide sea, far away from me. But perhaps one day I shall see my own mamma again. I remember how she looked well when she leaned her face close to mine as we sat together journeying here, and how sweet her voice sounded, and how soft her arm and her side felt, as

she hugged me close round against her. I wish I could have her to hug me close again. I wish she would come. I want to see her. I want my own mamma." And the child looked and spoke plaintively. impatiently. "'Hush, dear child,' said Jutha soothingly.

Look at this brave stranger! See how bright and handsome his clothing! Look what a goodly, beauteous face he hath! He is as glorious to behold as the king's son who had a fairy for his godmother. Whether it was the plaintive tone of the child, or the animated one of her companion, which penetrated the drowsed senses of the sleeper, they were together sufficient to awaken him. He opened his eyes, and beheld the two young girls standing there opposite to him, with his coarser between them, the bridal rein in the elder's hand.

"'I have brought your horse, sir,' said she, dropping her simple curtsy. He was straying. "'And a fair damsel to bring errant knight his palfrey could not be found in all the realm of enchantment,' said the stranger, springing to his feet and receiving the bridle from her. "'Surely I have wandered upon charmed ground, and you are one of its denizens.' A plain country maiden, none others, sir, and this her mother's nurse charge," said Jutha, courteeing once again, and presenting the little Ophelia. Still a charmer, an earthly charmer, if you will, yet no less bewitching, said the handsome stranger.

Prithy, tell me thy name, pretty one, and I will tell thee mine. It is Eryk. And mine is Jutha, sir, at your service. Nay, and thou volunteers to serve me, to do my bidding, pretty Jutha, and, and thou wilt thou, Thou'tha, thou must call me by my name, as I call thee by thine. So if thou wouldst pleasure me, thou wilt no more say, sir. I would please you, indeed, sir, Erick, and I knew how. It pleasures me, believe me, to hear my known name spoken with an artless tongue, and with a blushing innocence of face like that I look upon. Truly thou seem'st an opening rose,

and yonder quiet little thing a close-furled bud, that promises to be just such another flower of beauty as thyself, when she shall have reached thy age of bloom. In good faith I may thank my lady fortune, who brought me wearied from the chase, to cast myself down an enchanted wood, that I might dream a waking dream such as this. "'You were hunting, then, Sir Eric?' said Jutha. When, as she spoke, a mounted horseman rode up, and addressing the stranger in a tone of respect that showed them to be servant and master, announced that the chase was concluded, adding that His Majesty had noticed the Lord Eric's absence, and had desired someone to search

the wood, and collect stragglers from the hunting-train, as the royal party was now returning. "'Tis well, Trasco, ride thou on, I will speedily overtake thee, and tend his majesty,' said Lord Eric. Then, vaulting into the saddle, he raised his hat, kissed his hand, and saying, "'I must obey the King's command now, but I shall find a time to see more of my wood-nymphs.' Gave the spur to his horse and was gone. There was an end of the storytelling for that day. Jutha could talk of nothing else during the rest of the ramble but of the noble stranger,

of his handsome face and figure, of his gallant bearing, of his milk-white steed, of his unexpected appearance, and of his speedy departure. Perhaps it was because she had so thoroughly exhausted the subject, in thus discussing it with her young companion, or perhaps it was because they found on their arrival the thoughts of all at home engaged with other matters, Batilda being busy scolding Ulf and preparing the evening meal, and the rest bent solely upon having the supper ready as soon as possible. But certain it is that the encounter in the wood was never mentioned at the cottage, by either

Jutha or Ophelia. The young girl seemed satisfied with the interest had awakened in herself, and the child was of a quiet, retiring nature, which seldom induced her to communicate much with those around her. She was habitually silent, observant, rather than given to make remarks and words, contented to look on, to leave. listen, to notice what was passing, and to let others speak and act, while she held her peace. The nurse, Batilda, had long left her wholly to the care of Jutha. The good woman saw that

the young girl and the child sufficed in companionship to each other. While she herself had ample employment in the care of her idiot's son, Ulf, whose gormandising propensities and mischievous pranks, required her utmost vigilance. At one time he was found in the dairy, scooping the cream off the pans with the palms of his hand, and holding out some in his great hairy paw to the little Ophelia, who stood there as usual, half quakingly, half-wonderingly, then supping it up himself, lest it should trickle and waste before she would advance. His mother cuffs him soundly, nay, gets a stick, and belabors him as long as she has breath, but the loud only pretends to blubber.

"'Haven't you done yet, mother?' While by his sly grin he shows that her woman's arm fails to inflict any very severe chastisement. "'Cub that thou art! Thou shalt feel the weight of thy father's cudgel, and I kett thee at any more of thy pilfering tricks!' And another time he was discovered in the storeroom, stealing the honeycomb that had just been collected from the beehives. Ophelia finds him there, lurking in a corner, sucking his paws, with greedy joy gleaming in his eyes. "'They call me, Ulf the bear! Ha! ha! the bear's fond of honey!' he said with a grin, as he swilled and licked the handfuls of streaming comb. "'Taste! It's luscious nice. Taste some of the bears, honey!' And with his usual uncouth wish for her to share, he held some towards the child.

She shrank back. "'It isn't yours. Best not touch it.' "'Hush! Mother'll hear!' But his mother had already heard. She fetched Sigurd, who happened that day to be at work upon something that wanted doing at the cottage, and in a few minutes more Ophelia stood scared and trembling at the terrible sounds that reached her ear, of the father's blows, of Ulf's cries, more like the howls of a wild beast than anything human. Among these rough cottage people, more and more did the child fill herself alone in a part.

Her shyness and sparing speech grew upon her. She was not unhappy, but she became grave. Strangely quiet and reserved for a little creature of her years, and so confirmed in her habit of silence that she might almost have passed for dumb. She might be said to feel her uncongenial position without understanding. understanding it. She did not comprehend what made her serious, but she was rarely disposed to cheerfulness. She did not know why she was disinclined to talk, but she seldom met with any inducement to open her lips, and insensibly she kept them closed.

With her sweet, earnest eyes, her placid, though unsmiling countenance, and her still demeanour, she had a look of reflection, of pensiveness, that better becomes womanhood grown, than childhood. Childhood should be free from heed, light-hearted, undressable. reading, encouraged in its frankness, its confidence, its every hopeful, eager, thought, and word. Still, however, she had one resource, her one companion with whom she could assimilate and feel at ease. With Jutha, rambling abroad she was never dull, never sad.

With her her heart knew no heaviness, no misgiving, no loneliness. With her spirits rose to gladness, and she was, for the time, unreservedly happy. She used to spring forth into the open air like a young bird. newly franchised, escaped from restraint, and soaring into its native element of buoyancy and freedom. With her hand in Juthas, she would bound along, eager to take her fill of liberty, body and mind. Her spirit, no less than her limbs, seemed to revel in this season of unrestriction. For she then knew the joy that knows not how it is joyful. She felt the glee that asks not why it is glee, the joy and the glee of that age, which should know no shadow of care.

For some reason best known to herself, Jutha now invariably took the way towards the wood. Their former walks among the rocks, or along the seashore, were all abandoned, on some protects or other, in favour of the path which led through the forest, and the little Ophelia, loving the mysterious grandeur of its high-arching trees, was well pleased it should be their constant resort. On one of the first mornings they returned there, they had strolled far into its woody recesses. Jutha, as usual, entertaining her young companion with tales and marvels, but her tone was hurried, her attention seemed elsewhere, and her look, expectant at first, grew every moment

more thoughtful and vexed. Suddenly it brightened, and Aphelia, following the direction of her eyes, saw coming towards them the figure of Lord Eric on his milk-white horse. He threw himself from the saddle the moment he descried them, and eagerly approached. He seemed overjoyed to meet his nymphs of the wood, and sauntered long by their side. leading his horse by the bridle, talking and laughing animatedly. He shared their grassy seat when they stopped to rest from the noontide heat. He shared the contents of their basket when they produced their noontide meal, declaring he

had never tasted day-tier fare. He gave himself up to the spirit of the forest ramble, as though he could wish no pleasanter enjoyment. Morning after morning, he returned to make one in the wood-party, and never had the hours thus spent seemed to fly by so lightly. Juthah found it so, for the shadows of evening would steal upon them with warning to return home, ere she could well believe it to be afternoon. The little Ophelia was less charmed with this addition to their society.

She cared not that the stranger should come. She had always found sufficient delight in listening to Jutha, in walking and wandering with her. And though this gentleman was a very sprightly companion, and talked gaily and good-humouredly, yet as his conversation was chiefly addressed to Jutha, and was often carried on in a voice that scarce reached beyond her ear, it soon became productive of little entertainment to the child. Gradually it grew to be exclusively confined to the two others, and the little girl was left

to entertain herself as best she might, with her own thoughts or her own resources. She, by degrees, perceived that they were too much occupied with each other to be able to give much attention to her. She had hitherto been accustomed to have every question answered, every inquiry satisfied. Her friend Jutha had till now been always ready to furnish her with replies, and even even to supply her with fresh store of amusement from her own talk. It was otherwise, since this stranger had intruded upon their pleasant wood-rambles. Jutha had now no look, no word, but for him.

But then she herself seemed so contented, that her child-friend could not altogether find it in her heart to regret what made Jutha so evidently, so radiantly happy. She had never seen her look so full of joy, so full of spirit. Her eye sparkled, her color rose, her voice had exultation, in its tone as she took her way with Ophelia to these rambles in the wood, where they were sure to be joined by their new acquaintance. Once on meeting him the child saw his face assume a vexed look as it rested upon her. He turned to Jutha, and pointing to a nosegay she wore in her bodice, he said, Why bring flowers?

I can gather you some fresh here. Leave them at home, I beseech you, another time—especially the rose-buds." He said the last words with emphasis, though he dropped his voice. as he uttered them. But Jutha answered simply as she drew the flowers from her bosom, "'I brought them for you. I thought she would like some of our garden blossoms. They are but wild flowers that grow here in the wood.' He took them from her offered hand. "'I love wild flowers, wood-flowers, best of all. Yet I thank thee that thou thought'st of Eirik in gathering these,' said he in his low-breathed tones.

Still, canst thou not still farther pleasure him, by omitting to bring with thee the green unopened bud? Thou knowest the blowing rose with its rich beauty of colour and fragrance, is the one he could look upon, never tiring, to the exclusion of every flower else. He glanced for an instant at Ophelia, as he pronounced one part of this speech, with a look which she had before noted in his face, and which had told her plainly enough that he not only ceased to include her in the conversation he addressed to his nymphs of the wood, but that he would be heartily glad to have her out of hearing—nay, to be rid of her presence altogether."

The child thought to herself, "'He wishes me away. But till I see that Jutha does also I shall not go. I wish he were away. Jutha and I were very happy together till he came. I know what he means about the Rosebud, but till I find Jutha wants me out of hearing I shan't stir." So far from Jutha wishing her to leave them, Ophelia could hear that she was resisting, Lord Erick's urgently repeated request, that she would send the garden rosebud to gather wild

ones, with such sentences as, I dare not indeed, my lord, my mother gives her to my care, I must not let her stray out of sight." He seemed still to plead against these objections, to overrule them by asking what harm could come to her charge in this quiet solitary place, adding, "'Send her from us. I cannot speak to you as openly as I would, sweet Jutha, with that child listening to every word I utter.

I want to speak to you fully, entirely.' "'What can you have to say to me, My lord, that she may not hear. You can have naught to tell me that!" Jutha's voice trembled, and a bright color stole into her face. Then, in a voice that strove from more firmness, but which still hesitated, she went on. Were I to send her away she would be sure to come back in fewer moments than your lordship thinks, she does not like to be from me long. For however few moments, for however short of space, I would have you to myself, were it but

for one instant. Do not refuse me, Jutha." The young girl seemed still to be. hesitate, and the child could hear him mutter some reproach about want of confidence and not trusting him, which seemed to have more effect in moving Jutha than anything he had yet said. She stopped, hung her head, and faltered something in reply. Lord Eric led her to a seat on the turf beneath a goodly beech-tree. Then turning to Ophelia, he said in his most persuasive tone of gaiety and good-humour, as he unfastened the knot of a bright silken scarf which hung across his shoulder.

Here, take this, my little maid, I give it thee for a sash, and thou wilt go gather me all the gay crow-flowers, king-cups, and daffy-down dillies thou canst fine in the forest, to make a chaplet for this queen of the woods, thy fair friend Jutha. I don't want the sash, said the little Ophelia, drawing back, as he attempted to put it round her. Nor do you want the flowers. You want me to go away, out of hearing, while you tell Jutha some secret you have for her. I do not care to do what you wish, because you tried to—

to make me believe the pretense of the flowers and the sash, instead of asking me at once to leave you. But I do care to please Jutha, and if she tells me she wishes to listen to your secret without my hearing, I will go away at once." Jutha said nothing, but there was the bright color in her cheek which Ophelia could see, though the young girl still hung her head. Jutha is curious to learn the secret you have to tell her. I can see she is," said the child, peeping under her friend's drooping face. I'll go then, and I'll stay away alone.

long while that you may have your talk out freely. The young girl made a faint attempt to detain her, but it was unperceived by Ophelia, who walked straight away among the trees, bent upon relieving them of her presence. Once out of sight and hearing of her late companions, the child strode on more leisurely, now pulling some stray twig or blossom that caught her eye as she rambled along, now stopping to peer into some briary tangle of close underwood, some leafy break or thicket, where she fancied she would spy a bird's nest. Now halting to watch some scrambling squirrel that would dart up the barky trunk of a high tree, till he reached the topmost bow, whence he would slyly peep down at her in triumphant security, and still as she wandered on, trying to amuse her thoughts thus, they would ever and anon recur to the question of what could be the secret the gentleman had to tell Jutha. Yet why should I ponder farther upon it?

It is clear they do not wish I should know it, or they would not have sent me out of the way while it was telling. If I endeavour to find it out by guessing, it is almost as bad as trying to do so by listening. I won't guess any more. I won't even think about it. I'll see if I can find the beautiful white horse, and amuse myself by feeding him." And many times after this, Ophelia was glad to find in the noble horse a source of entertainment during her solitary rambles.

For her walks in the forest were all solitary now. Whatever might be the secret Lord Eric had to tell, it was evidently not to be told in one conversation. For time after time he made protects to send Fielio away, while he and Jutha talked alone. And the child, finding that her friend no longer sought to detain her by her side, left them together undisturbed. Though she herself could not feel so happy, separated thus frequently from her kind girl companion, with whom she had formerly spent such pleasant hours, yet so long as Jutha seemed the happier by the arrangement, Ophelia could fancy that it contented herself.

But after a time Jutha's look of joy faded, her spirits that at first seemed almost too exuberant, as if they must needs express the secret gladness she hoarded at heart, in bright looks, and a mirthful tone of voice that finding speech too sober would often break forth into bursts of song varied frequently. the air of inward ecstasy and conscious rapture, involuntarily betraying itself in a thousand vivacious gestures, was exchanged for an appearance of anxiety and uneasiness. There were moments when her joyful looks rekindled. Her exuberance of gaiety returned, but it was fitfully. Her spirits fluctuated. She was alternately at height of glee, or lost

in thought. She would still, in her cheerful moments, break out into snatches of the song which was her favorite at this time. For Bonnie Sweet Robin is all my joy. singing with an eager look and exulting expression of voice, but there was solicitude mingled with the eagerness. There was forced mirth in the tone of exultation. These periods of cheerfulness grew rarer and less lasting. They were more often replaced by fits of thoughtfulness and brooding anxiety. The sparkling, bright up-look gave way to a downcast expression, or when the eye was raised, it was with a beseeching appeal in its tearful sadness. End of part three.

Part four of Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elizabeth Clette. Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor, from the Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, by Mary Coutin' Clark. Part four The altered manner of the young girl escaped the notice of the cottage inmates, but the child observed the change in her friend. and sorrowed wonderingly. Once returning to the bank where she had left Jutha seated in one of her saddest moods,

Ophelia found her restored to sudden gaiety. Lord Eric had arrived while the child was away, and was talking cheeringly and encouragingly to his companion, while one of his arms was thrown about her, holding her close to him. Jutha withdrew from the clasping arm as the child approached, looking bashful and embarrassed, but at the same time so happy, and so much her bright former self, that Ophelia in her innocent affection for her friend could not help hoping that their forest acquaintance might always come and console Jutha, with his kindness of word and manner, when she should be out of spirits.

But time goes on, and the young girl's dejection increases. Ophelia finds her one evening, sitting by the rivulet, wringing her hands, and sobbing. The child soothes her fondly, asking what grieves her. Jutha attempts to deny that she had been weeping, but Ophelia replies, "'You bathe your eyes in the water of the stream that I may not see the tears, but I know that you have been crying. Tell me what makes you cry, Jutha." Jutha only shook her head, trying to stifle a sob that would be heard.

If you care not to tell your grief to such a little thing as I am, who can comfort you with no help or counsel? Why not tell your mother what grieves you? I often wish I could tell my own mamma what I think and feel. Tell our good mother, if anything grieves you, Jutha." But nothing grieves me. I can't tell her," faltered the young girl. Then tell our friend of the wood, your friend, Lord Eric, he seems kind and fond of you,

Jutha." So long as he is fond of me, so long as he is my friend, nothing can grieve me," said Jutha, but nothing does grieve me. Come, what are we talking of grief? Let us return home, and I'll tell you a story, by the way. I shall like that. It is long since I heard one of your stories, Jutha. I shall love to hear one again."

Jutha rejoiced to find that she had succeeded, as she had hoped to do, in turning the child's attention from herself to the promised tale. But though Ophelia looked up in her friend's face with the eagerness of expectation, it did not prevent her from noting, with the sorrowing acuteness of loving perception, the many tokens of altered mean to be read there. She remembered Jutha's brilliant colour, her beautiful face with its sunny look of health and liveliness, her easy, alert gait, the spotless nicety of her neat-fitting garments, and though so young a child, Ophelia perceived the contrast they presented with the thin,

white cheeks, the hollow eyes, the slouching heaviness of person and carriage, the disordered dress, the general air of depression and self-abandonment. The change, although so great, had been so gradual, that the parents and brothers of Jutha, in their obtuseness of perception and care of other matters, had still not a observed it, but it had long attracted Ophelia's eye, and now it smote upon her heart with more painful force than ever. How the wind howls! What a dreary autumn evening it is! said Jutha, looking round her at the darkening sky.

See how the leaves whirl and fall! The trees will all be bare soon! And then comes the winter—cold winter! No more forest walks when the trees are bare. They bore him barefaced on the a beer." "'That's not the song I'm thinking of,' she muttered. "'You think of sad songs now, Jutha,' said the child. "'Where are your merry ones?' "'Where, indeed, gone, all gone. He is gone, he is gone, and we cast away moan.

Aye, that is it.' And she began to chant in a mournful voice. "'And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead. Go to thy death-bed. He never will come again." Who is dead, Jutha?

You frighten me," said the child. No one is dead, said the young girl quickly. Who said he was dead? They say dead and gone, but we may be gone, without being dead, mayn't we, little one. She spoke in a sharp, abrupt tone as if she would fain have made it sound jestingly. Then she hurried on. Do you hear the owl-hute? See yonder she flies with her flappy wings and mealy feathers.

I'll tell you a story about Dame Owl. I promised you a story, you know. Listen! I am listening, Jutha." The young girl told her the legend as she had heard it. She told her that when he who had pity in his heart for the various wretch that crawls, for the dying thief, for the erring sinner, even for her whose sins were many, when he who taught divine pity and charity above all things walked the earth in human shape,

and suffered human privation in the plenitude of her. his merciful sympathy with poor humanity. It once upon a time befell, that he hungered by the way, and seeing a shop where bread was baking, entered beneath the roof, and asked for some to eat. The mistress of the shop was about to put a piece of dough into the oven to bake, but her daughter, pitiless of heart, declaring that the piece was too large, reduced it to a mere morsel. This was no sooner done, than the dough began to swell and increase, until in amazement at its miraculously growing size that the baker's daughter, screamed out like an owl at,

"'Who-hoo! Hoo! Who! Who!' Then he who had craved food held forth his hand, and in the place where she who lacked charity had stood screaming, there was a void. But against the window beating its wings, hooting and struggling to get out, was a huge, mealy feathered owl. It forced away through, took flight, and was seen no more.

Excepting when some night wanderer descried the ill-omened bird skulking in the twilight-wood, obscure grove, and then he murmurs a prayer, to be delivered from the sin of uncharitableness, as he thinks of the transformed Baker's daughter. That evening on their return to the cottage, it seemed to Ophelia that those at home first became aware of the change in her friend Jutha, which she had so long perceived and lamented. But it also strangely struck her, that instead of this discovery awakening kindness and compassion towards the sufferer, it appeared to excite rather anger, reproach, and even in vexed Their voices were raised in a confusion of questions, threats, and expressions of wonder,

with which they assailed the young girl, in an incoherent clamor, from which the child could make out nothing clearly. The mother bemoaned her own and her daughter's fate. The father murmured deep curses. The two elder brothers strode angrily to and fro with menacing looks, ground teeth, and clenched hands. The idiot boy sat gibbering and croaking a harsh wailing cry in one corner, adding to the general discordance.

Jutha had flung herself upon a chair in the midst, upon the back of which she leaned, burying her face in her arms. From time to time she uttered convulsive sighs, heavy sobs burst from her, each seeming to rend her frame asunder, but else she preserved a sullen, despairing silence, as sole reply to the clamorous enquiry that surrounded her. Ophelia crept away softly to bed, unable to make out the meaning of this distressful scene, and marveling much why they should show displeasure instead of so much. sorrow at Jutha's illness, why they should seem to resent rather than to compassionate,

why they should overwhelm her with reproaches in the midst of her unhappiness, instead of seeking to comfort and console. For some time she lay pondering on these things, full of concern and wonder, wishing Jutha to come to bed, that she might assure her of her sympathy at least, and longing to see if caresses and loving words of pity and tenderness might not avail to lessen her poor friend's grief. But the hours crept on, and a little one's affectionate anxiety yielded to drowsiness. She slept. But it was an uneasy sleep, full of dreams, and haunting ideas of wretchedness and perplexity. From this slumber she awoke strugglingly, and with a beating heart. It was pitch dark. She felt that many hours had elapsed, and that it was the dead

of night. She stretched out her arms to feel for Jutha at her side. But no Jutha was there. In alarm she started up. What could have kept her away? Was she worse? Was she unable to move? Was she still in the midst of that confusion of angry voices?" The child listened. All seemed still below. What then could prevent Jutha from coming up to her room, to lie down and to get the rest she so much needed? In alarm for her friend, in an irresistible desire to learn how she was and what detained

her, Ophelia stole out of bed, and groped her way downstairs. On reaching the door of the sitting-room she saw a bright streak from the crevice at the bottom which showed her there was light in the room. She felt for the latch above her head, and succeeded in finding and unfastening it. She pushed open the door, but the blaze of light from within suddenly contrasted with the obscurity from which she had emerged, made her pause. She stood on the threshold, gazing in, trying to distinguish the object the room contained. On the large table which occupied the centre of the apartment lay something extended which

was covered with a white cloth. At one end were ranged as many iron lamps as the cottage household afforded, burning in a semicircular row. Amazed at this strange sight, the child advanced. And with an uncontrollable impulse walked straight up to the table, and raised the end of the white cloth nearest to the lamps. The light fell upon the object beneath. Startled and shuddering the child looked upon that which was so familiar, yet so strange!

Could that indeed be the face of Jutha? That white, still, rigid thing! With those breathless, motionless lips, and those eyelids that looked fixed rather than closed. And what was that, lying upon her breast, encircled by her arm? A little, little face—a baby's face! It looked so transparent, so waxen, so pretty, though so strangely image-like, that the child involuntarily stretched forth her finger and touched its cheek. The icy cold, shot with a sharp thrill to her heart, and she screamed aloud as she turned to Jutha's face, and flung herself upon it with wild kisses and tears.

Batilda, hearing the cry, came running in. She used her best efforts to calm the morning and affrighted child, carrying her up to bed, lying down by her side, folding her in her arms, and speaking fondlingly and soothingly to her until she dropped asleep. But it was long ere this was accomplished, and for many successive nights the nurse had to sleep in the room with her charge, that she might be one to rest. The shock she had received was severe, and long left its effects upon her sensitive or organization.

Naturally gentle, she became timid. She shrank about, scared and trembling, fearful of she hardly knew what, but feeling unassured, doubtful, full of a vague uneasiness and alarm. Ulf's hideousness shows more horribly than ever in her eyes. He seems to her some fiend-like creature as he crouches there, drawing the flaps of his ears over till the tops reach beneath his chin, pulling his nether lip down and turning it inside out, it lies stretched and spread, displaying his cankered gums and his yellow and black teeth, some flat like tombstones, some long, narrow and sharp like the fangs of a dog. His manner to

herself puzzles and torments her, for it is capricious, and varies accordingly as he meets her alone or with others. When the family are present he treats her roughly, speaks of her jeeringly as the little princess or the little court-lady, and twits her with pride, complaining of her silence as haughty, her keeping him at a distance as arrogant and insolent. When, however, by any chance they are by themselves, he becomes cajoling, and tries all means to affect his purpose of approaching her, or getting her to come to him. He spares neither fair words, wheedling tricks, or shy devices to lure her within reach of his paws, but neither fawning nor stratagem succeed. Now, more than ever, she resists his advances, and contrives to elude his contact. The former curiosity

which had mingled with her disgust at this idiot boy, exciting her to observe his uncouth ways, yielded entirely to the loathing she felt for him, and she now dreaded and avoided him as sedulously as she had once watched him. Upon one occasion, however, her vigilance in preventing his coming near her was frustrated. He was close upon her before she was aware. She had been wandering out towards the wood. It was winter now, and the frost hung its glittering fretwork upon bush and briar. She had been thinking how cheerless and desolate all seemed, in despite the brilliancy of

the white tracings round, since her companion Jutha was lost to her, and could never more come thither, to share her admiration of winter frost, spring buds, the rich luxuriance of summer leaves and blossoms, or the mellow hues of autumn. She had been pondering upon the mystery of her friend's change of spirits, her sadness, her illness, her death. And then, as there were no flowers to be found in that sullen season, she gathered a branch of wild rose, which bore its winter fruitage of scarlet haws in bright profusion, that she might place upon Dutha's grave the best semblance that might be of a tributary garland.

The child repaired with her offering to the quiet nook where she knew her friend was laid, and there, tired with her walk, oppressed with sad thoughts, and numbed into lethargy by the cold, she threw herself upon the low mound, and slept. Not many minutes after she was perceived lying there, by Ulf, who crept stealthily towards her. "'It's little cord lady, and fast asleep,' he muttered with a grin. "'No airs now. The bear shan't be balked of his hug this time.' He leaned down over her. The hot breath reached her face, like the rank fumes of a charcoal furnace it seems to stifle her with his tainted oppression. She struggled and woke. To find that loathly visage hanging just

above hers. Instinctively, to ward off its fearful approach, she clutched at the nearest thing at hand. It was the branch of wild rose, which beside its scarlet berries was thickly studded with thorns. And this she thrust with all her force against the impending face. The sharp appeal was effectual. The lout drew back, smarting and bleeding. "'The rose is prickly as well as pretty,' he said with a leer of idiot's slyness. "'But we'll see if we can't pluck away its thorns and smell its sweetness. is in spite of him. But in raising his hand to free himself from the obnoxious branch, which had rendered her such

good service, Ulf gave the child an opportunity of slipping from his grasp. She was not slow to avail herself of the advantage, but dexterously pulling her skirts from beneath his knee, which in his rude eagerness he had set fast upon them, she succeeded in raising herself away from him, scrambling to her feet, and setting off to run at her utmost speed. It would have availed her but little had he pursued her. But it happened that she had not got many paces before she was joined by Patilda, who had come out to look for her, and Ulf at the sight of his mother slunk away, like a cur that fears

detection. That night Ophelia lay awake, a prey to fancies and terrors that would not let her close her eyes. Batilda, after sharing her bed for many nights, thinking that the child had by this time recovered from the late shock, had left her to return to her own room after seeing her softly drop off into her first sleep. But from this the little girl had suddenly started, broad awake, trembling and agitated, with a frightful dream she had been dreaming, of digging down into Jutha's grave, with a mad desire to look upon her face once more, of finding it only to see it change into that of Ulf, who

raising himself from the coffin groped among the mould, and drew forth a little baby's wide arm which he fell to scratching and marring with briars. The horror of the sight awoke her, she struggled into a sitting posture, stared through the dim space, and found herself alone in that dreary room. She could just distinguish the blank square spot where the window was. There was deep snow upon the ground, which cast a sickly glare, the moon partially shining from amid haze and clouds. The familiar objects in the room looked shadowy, and spectral in that uncertain light, and the child could get no assurance, or steadying of her thoughts from looking upon them. At length it seemed to her that among

them, there, yonder, at the farther end of the room she saw something moving. It was dark, and stole along without noise, shapeless, indistinct, scarce seen but horribly present. She shuddered and shrank beneath the bedclothes. Her heart beat violently, and her head throbbed, so loud that she could have counted the thumps of each. She had a confused notion of trying to do this amid the distraction of hearing her teeth keep a bewildering counter-current of strokes, in a rapid timing of their own.

Presently she clenched them firmly, that she might listen to something that caught her ear beside the tumult of her own pulses, she thought she heard a muffled sound, as if something swept against the coverlet of her bed. In desperation she held her breath to listen the more acutely for what she so much dreaded to hear. Yes, again the sound, as of something softly drawn along the side of the coverlet, was repeated, and this time she felt the bed-clothes brushed by the passing substance. She would have shrieked aloud, but her parched throat refused to give utterance to the cry

of terror that choked her. Could it be an animal? Was it anything alive? Or were there indeed wandering shapes of evil permitted to visit the earth in night and darkness, as wild tales hinted? The child's dismay hurriedly pointed to such questions, but on a sudden her attention was attracted to quite a different source. There was a noise of trampling feet in the snow outside, a sound of many voices, a loud knocking at the door of the cottage, and upon her finding courage to look from beneath the bedclothes, she could see the The light of torches flashing and gleaming through the window. Then there came a stir in the house, a hurry below, hasty steps ascended the stairs, and in

another moment the door of her room was flung open, and in the midst of the stream of light that poured in, a figure appeared, which rushed forward to the bed where she lay, exclaiming, "'My child! My dear, dear child! My little Ophelia!' "'Mama!' was the instinctive reply, as the child felt herself gathered into the soft security of a mother's bosom. In the confusion, no one had remarked the cowering form of Ulf, who darted from a lurking place by the bedside, and made his way out through the open

door, just as the others passed into the room. It was he, who, in his brutish pertinacity of desire to obtain the hug he promised himself, had alarmed the child by prowling stealthily about her chamber in the dark. But now, no more fear, no more harm, she was surely, happily sheltered. The Lady Udra could not sufficiently feast her eyes upon her daughter's face. Again she scanned every feature, noted every particular of look and expression, sought eagerly each mark of remembered appearance, and traced each vestige of growth and alteration. As she gazed, she became aware of the burning spot that glowed and deepened in the young

cheek, the two bright sparkle of the eyes, the unnatural restlessness of the lips, which at length wore an almost vacant smile, while the fingers idly played. among the long curls of her mother's hair drooping over her. In alarm the lady caught her child's hand in hers. It was feverishly hot. I have been culpably unheedful, inconsiderate. I shall have my own rash selfishness to blame, should the surprise have been too much for my darling. Yet who would have expected such sensitiveness, such susceptibility in one so young?—dear child! Mother's own treasure! Mother's little tender one!

gently, gently, she set about repairing the mischief she feared she had done. She shaded the light away from the two eager eyes. She coaxed them to close, to cease to look upon her, by clasping one of the hands in hers, that the child might know she was still there. She lay down beside her, parting the hair back upon the heated forehead, giving her from time to time cooling drinks, and suggesting none but peaceful happy thoughts. In the low, soft talking she murmured the while in her ear. Lulled thus the child fell into slumber.

But for some hours it was a disturbance. un-easy one, giving the lady many a pang of dread and self-reproach. Violent startings, abrupt twitching of the limbs, talking in her sleep, muttered ends of songs and mournful tunes alternately alarmed the watcher. Once the little girl sprang suddenly up, trembling, and looking about her with a sacred eagerness of expectation, clinging convulsively to the arm stretched to receive her. But when she felt herself enfolded within a mother's embrace, when she found herself safe nestling against a mother's heart, cherished by a mother's her affection, guarded by a mother's care, she yielded tranquilly, blissfully, to a sense of perfect

repose, lapped into that balmy atmosphere of maternity, she sank into profound rest. Holy Mother Love! Nearest semblance vouchsafed safe to mortals of divine protection! Beninest human symbol of God's mercy to man! There is a blessed influence, a sacred joy, a plenitude of satisfaction, in the very presence of a mother, that plainer speaks the mysterious beatitude of a mother. of heaven itself to earthly intelligence than aught else in existence." End of Part 5 of Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor.

This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elizabeth Clet. Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor, from the Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines by Mary Cowden Clark. Part 5. The Little Ophelia woke next morning from her healing. sleep revived, and quite herself. She was so free from the feverish symptoms which had so much alarmed her mother overnight, that Udra thought she might venture to remove her at once

to their home at Elsinor. The complete change proved the most beneficial thing that could have been devised. In the new scene to which she was introduced, the child acquired unwonted spirits. She gained more of the carelessness befitting her age. She lost that look of uneasiness and a resolution which had struck her mother so painfully at first. She seemed no longer oppressed by a vague solicitude and dread which had appeared to haunt her, and hang its weight on her spirits. The only time there was any trace in her of a recurrence to such impressions was when there happened to be allusion made to her past existence. She appeared a verse from speaking or even thinking of the period she had spent at the cottage. She never reverted to it of her own accord,

never mentioned any of the names of her former associates, or recalled any circumstance that occurred among them, and her mother, perceiving how distasteful the subject was, took care never to revive it in her child's mind. It was avoided altogether, the Lady Udra only regretting that she had ever been compelled, to leave her little one in what had evidently been so uncongenial a home. Her chief care was now to surround her child with none but pleasant, healthful influences, of person, seen, and circumstance. She kept her as much as possible in her own society, and in that of her father, the Lord Polonius, whenever his court duties permitted him to be at home.

Her young son, Laertes, was with them for a period, until the time should arrive for his going to the university. Meantime, masters were engaged, and the children pursued their studies together, though the Lady Udra chiefly superintended those of her little girl herself. She appointed the one of her own women to whom a few few years. A. A. A. A. A.a. Seemed to have taken the greatest fancy, to the child's particular attendant. Gouda was a lively, good-tempered girl, and her cheerful companionship was one of the wholesome accessories by which the mother hoped to effect a removal of any sinister impression that might remain upon her child's spirits of bygone discomforts.

The affection that now had full opportunity of taking its natural growth between father and child contributed greatly to the happiness of Aphelia's new existence. Leonius became dotingly fond of his little girl, and she in turn reverenced him with all dutious affection. She would watch for his home-coming, soon getting to know the hours of his return from attendance at the palace, and then she would set his easy-chair, and bring his slippers, and the furred gown for which she exchanged his court robes, when indulging in domestic ease, and then he would pat her cheek, or pass his hand over her fair young head, and say some fondling

words of rejoicing that he now possessed so pretty a living toy at home, as his little daughter, to beguile his leisure hours. He was a good-natured man, of a kindly disposition, with much original shrewdness, and a great deal of acquired worldly knowledge. He was an odd compound of natural familiarity and assumed dignity, of affability and importance, of condescension and dictatorialness, of garrulous ease and ostentation. He was often jocular, and would twinkle his half-merry, half- astute eyes, rubbing his hands with a chuckling air of enjoyment, as if he had not a thought beyond the relish of the immediate jest. But some time after, as if willing to show that it was the mere momentary unbending of the great statesman, he would

knit his brow, lean back in his chair, with his hand supporting his chin, and look meditative. He used a pompous enunciation for the most part. But occasionally his opinionated eagerness would run away with him, hurry him into forgetfulness of the main thread of his subject until he was brought suddenly to a check, a pause from which he sought hasty refuge in the resumption of his didactic style. He was fond of parceling out his speech into formal divisions, of putting forth his opinions and set phrases. He was full of precept, sententious in speech, and uttered his axioms in authoritative voice.

He spoke preceptively. He would talk to his wife in manner of an oration, clearing his voice, and pausing a little, as if to bespeak full attention ere he began. He liked to see those around him performing audience to his dicta. He would address the guests at his table as if they were a committee or a board of counsel, and harangue rather than converse. He prided himself on great foresight and perspicacity. He ordinarily prefaced with a hem, and emphasized as he went on with one hand in the palm of the other,

or by reckoning off each clause successively on his fingers. He collected attention by canvassing glances, gathered it in by sharp espial upon those in whom he perceived symptoms of its straying, and kept it from wandering by a short admonitory cough. He was accustomed to ask, in a triumphant tone, when any prediction of his was ever known to fail and being verified by the event. He affected diplomacy and expediency in action, mystery and expression, craft and device. He had a habit of laying artful schemes in conversation, for entrapping those about him

into betrayals of characteristics, such as he described to them, and then would exalt in the proofs of his accurate judgment. You see? What did I say? He peaked himself on ingenuity, encompassing his ends, and in their accomplishment preferred contrivance and cunning to the commonplace means of straightforward procedure. Policy was his rule of action, statement-ship his glory of ambition. He would complain of the fatigues of office, of the onerous demands of a court life, of

the cares of government. But secretly, official dignities, a courtier's existence, and ministerial power formed the sum of his desires. His wife, the Lady Udra, understood his character well. But both her affection for the good qualities he possessed, and her conjugal duty taught her to acquiesce in his peculiarities, forbearing to show any unmeat consciousness of them. She would gravely listen when he told her of some deep-played plot he had, for bringing about what she, in her singleness of mind, thought might have been affected by much simpler means.

She heard in silence, yet with attentive sympathy, his plans of ambition, his projects for advancement, and she took active interest in his schemes for the national welfare, even when she felt them to be more subtly devised than practically applicable. But she could not forbear smiling, though to herself only, when she saw him carry this system of policy into his domestic's way, when she saw him exercise his authority as husband, father, and master, by a sort of trick, when she found him securing her wifely obedience. obedience, that obedience which would have been spontaneously yielded without inducement, by management and winning artifices. When she found him governing his children, ruling his household, regulating his affairs, nay, ordering his servants by a calculated method of stratagem, she could do no other than

smile. Beyond all else that provoked her smile, was to see how the innocence of childhood—the unconscious simplicity of his young son and daughter set at naught the diplomatist's skill—frustrated and rendered null his intrigue. by an ingenuous look or word. Instead of openly forbidding or reprehending certain deeds, he would lay snares for discovering whether they had been committed, and while the process was going on, his penetration was baffled by the artless behavior of the children. His guile was futile against their candour, and was more frequently proved at fault than they. His sagacity

was always aiming at detection, where no delinquency existed, ever bent on discovering some concealment where there was nothing to conceal. It was always always, almost comic to see the searching frowned he would bend on one of those clear open countenances, held up to him in confident on reserve, conscious of no shadow of blame. The questioning eye, the shrewd glance, the artfully put enquiry, seemed absurd, directed against such transparent honesty. In consequence of this system of their fathers, his praise was sometimes as mysterious and unexpected to the young Laertes and Ophelia as his reproof. On one occasion he called them to him, and commended them highly for never having been into a certain gallery which

he had built out into his garden, for the reception of some pictures, bequeathed to him by a French nobleman, a friend of his, lately dead. Seeing a look of surprise on their faces, he added, "'Ah, you marvel how I came to know so certainly that you never went in, but I have methods deep and sure. A little bird or my little finger! In few you need not assure me that you never entered that gallery, for I happen to be aware beyond a doubt that you never did, and I applaud your discretion." "'But we did go in,' said Ophelia.

"'What, child? Poo, impossible! Come to me, look me full in the face!' Not that she looked down, or a side, or anything but straight at him, but he always used this phrase conventionally when he conducted an examination. I tell you, you never went into that gallery. I know it for a fact. There is no use in attempting to deceive your father.

I should have discovered it had you gone into that room without my permission. "'But did you not wish us to go there?' "'I never knew you forbade it,' said Laertes. "'If we had known you had any objection, neither Ophelia nor I would have. "'I never forbad it, certainly,' interrupted his father. "'But I had strong reasons for wishing you should not go into the room till the pictures were hung. You might have injured them. No, no, I knew better than to let heedless children play there,

so I took means to prevent your entering the gallery without my knowledge.' "'But we did play there. Every day, father,' said Laertes. "'Yes,' said Ophelia. "'And I tell you impossible. Listen to me. I fastened a hair across the entrance. The invisible barrier is yet unbroken. So that you see.

You could not have passed through that door without my knowledge.' "'But we didn't go through the door, Papa. We got in at the window,' exclaimed both the children. "'We didn't know you wished us not to play there. So finding a space which the builders had left in one of the windows that look into the garden, we used to creep in there and amuse ourselves with looking at the new pictures. We did no harm, only admired." Time went on.

Laertes was now a tall stripling, was sent to Paris, then famous as a seat of learning. The motives which swayed Polonius in the choice of the university to which he decided upon sending his son were characteristic. He owned to his wife that he should have preferred sending the youth to Wittenberg, where the king's son was a student, such an opportunity for intimacy with the prince being a great temptation. But there was a certain personage, highly influential with the Court of France. who had exacted a promise from him that Laertie should be educated at the University of Paris,

and as it was of the utmost importance that the friendly relations with France which he had established during the period of his embassage there, should be carefully maintained, he resolved that nothing should interfere with his sons being placed at college in that country. Ophelia grew into delicate girlhood, ever quiet, ever diffident, in her retiring gentleness and modesty, but serene and happy, a tranquil spirited maiden, unexacting, and even-tempered, affectionate, one of those upon whom the eyes and hearts of all near dwell with a feeling of repose. Her father now began to look forward to his long-cherished hope of introducing her at court, where

he beheld her already attracting his sovereign's gracious notice, and winning the favor of the queen. He imparted his views to his wife, adding that all Aphelia wanted was a little forming in manner to render her presentable. And to that end, he intended cultivating for her the acquaintance of a young lady, daughter to a friend of his, the Lord Cornelius. Udra ventured the pardonable motherly remark, that their young Ophelia was perfectly well-bred, a gentlewoman in every particular.

An air of nobility distinguishes her mean, and the look of unruffled content in the blue depths of those violet eyes, revealing the sweet placidity of her nature, gives a crowning grace of self-possession and ease that might become a princess. If a court atmosphere, if the royal presence be our child's destiny, she seems fitted for them by nature." "'I, I, by nature, but art may do somewhat, art may do much. Polish, refinement, a conventional breeding and manner, an air of the world are attained only by associating with those accustomed to move in courtly circles.

The Lady Thyra, daughter to my friend Cornelius, having lost her mother when quite a child, has been early habituated to receive guests, to preside over her father's establishment, in few to enact betimes the centre of a distinguishable circle. To promote a friendship between this young lady and our daughter will be to place Ophelia beneath fittest tutelage, in the very school to form her for the future station she will fill. Is this young lady, Thyra, unrestricted in her proceedings, choosing her own associates, complete mistress of her conduct in herself, quite the best associate, thank you, my lord, for our daughter?

May there not be risk as well as advantage in the companionship. What but advantage can there be, good, my lady? The Lord Cornelius enjoys the royal confidence. He will rise to highest honors in the state. I foresee, trust this brain of mine, I foresee, I say, that when an envoy to Norway shall be needed, he will—but no matter. Where was I? Oh, his wealth is ample, and he allows his daughter well-nigh unlimited command of his means and fortune. What more would you have?

No more. Nay, not so much. Her power, her position, I doubt not. Tis herself, I mean. Is she— Tutt, tut, lady mine. interrupted Udra's husband with a wave of the hand, which she well knew to be a final significance.

She is in all respects what I could best wish for my girl's friend. The Lord Cornelius is as anxious as myself for the improvement of the acquaintance, and it is my will that henceforth the family shall be intimate. Let it be looked to. My coach shall be ordered forthwith, my lord. I will wait upon the young lady with our daughter without delay since such is your wish," said the lady-wife dutiously, adding to herself, I will hope that it is no more than a mother's anxiety which makes me see a groundless

fear in this friendship. The Lady, Thyra, may be all that I could desire in heart and mind, for my Ophelia's associate. At all events I shall now see her myself and judge." As far as judgment could be formed in a first visit, all that Udras saw of Cornelius's daughter that morning led her to rejoice that so pleasant an intimacy as this promise to be should have been begun. The young lady was evidently the petted child of a proud father. who knew not how to refuse her anything. But this indulgence did not seem to have spoiled

her, and that alone spoke greatly in favour of her natural disposition. She was neither imperious nor willful. There was none of the insolence in manner or impatience of control, which might have been generated by such a course as hers, of irresponsible self-government. She received the Lady Udra with much gentle grace, and with a tone of respect in her welcome, which showed, that having been so long her own mistress, had not destroyed that deference which youth owes to superiority of age and experience. She was sprightly, without hardness. She was easy, without forwardness. She was self-possessed without a spark of self-conceit in her demeanour. There was a tone of good breeding in her every word and gesture, which

showed that she was accustomed to much society. But there was that in her manner which bespoke goodness of heart, as well as courtesy of tongue. There was an unrestrained freedom in her mode of speech, which told plainly how habituated she was to the expression of her opinions and feelings before numbers. But there was something also that revealed how little need there was for reserve in any of her thoughts or sentiments. She was obviously kind-natured as well as complacent, affectionate as well as affable, amiable as well as polite. As for Ophelia, she was charmed with her, and the young lady Thyra seemed no less won by the modest sweetness of Udra's daughter. A mutual and strong attraction at once subsisted between the two girls, and after their first

introduction to each other, they became as rapidly and completely intimate as the fathers could have desired. Soon no morning was spent apart, and Thyra, intent upon enjoying her new friend's society uninterruptedly, made a point of receiving Ophelia alone, and of appointing her usual visitors in the evening only henceforward. She could assume a pretty tyranny, a kind of playful despotism when she chose. It sat well on her, and her friends submitted to it, well pleased, as only another grace in the graceful Thyra.

There was so much of feminine elegance in what she did and said, that it seemed her natural prerogative to have all yield to her. She was not willful, but she liked to have her own way, and it was so pleasantly asserted, so inoffensively insisted on, that no one dreamed of denying it her. She was so winning while she dictated, so obliging in the midst of her exactions, so really thoughtful of the feelings of others while she affected to be thinking only of her own, so truly kind, while so pretendedly selfish, that all loved to obey her behests. And indeed it was generally found in the end, that they were prompted by a consideration

for the general pleasure, as well as for hers in particular. "'You know, sweet friend, we could not find the way to each other's hearts, were we to meet in a crowd every day, instead of thus familiarly, unrestrainedly, doing and saying exactly what we please while together, as we do now, do we not?" said she to Ophelia as they sat together in Thyra's pleasant room, her own peculiar room, which was fitted up with every graceful luxury a young girl's taste could suggest in its adornment, and looking out as it did upon the gardens by which her father's mansion was surrounded, its windows shadowed with trees and flowering climbers, it was in all respect the ideal of a lady's bower.

"'Besides, I mean you to know something of the people you will meet before you come among them, since you have owned me, with that charming simplicity and frankness of yours, that you feel some awe at the thought of encountering strangers.' "'I have so little seen of strange faces,' said Ophelia. "'My father's guests are chiefly men high in office, counsellors of state, grave and dignified personages, and my dear mother, thinking one so young could not as yet derive advantage from their conversation allowed me to keep our own apartments when there were visitors. You shall hear all about mine ere you are introduced, and then they will be no strangers

to you when you see them. You will be acquainted with them beforehand, and it's a great advantage, let me tell you, to have this key, knowledge of the character, previously to looking upon the face. Those who have none of your novice modesty would often be famed to get possession of such a treasure as this same key. Is it quite fair that I should have the advantage you speak of, Gira." Never fear, thou dear scrupulous novice, those very people could they know that their characters

have been discussed, would be the best pleased. So that we are but thought of, talked of, our self-esteem is satisfied. To be unnoticed, to be of such insignificance as to be left uncriticised, that is the sting most difficult for human pride to endure. Then pray indulge them and me by some of your strictures," said Ophelia, smiling. Let us hear what biting things your amount of malice can allow itself to utter, and yet your lip slanders itself if it be a slanderer of others. Nay, no slander, truth, nothing but truth.

Come, with whom shall I begin. Methinks I'll commence at once with the highest, and so get the most dangerous part of my task dispatched first. Our sovereign and his queen have honoured my father's house with their presence, but I may not, of course, count their majesties among my visitors. The king's brother, however, Lord Claudius, is not an unfrequent guest here, and he— You have been presented to their majesties? You know the king's person?

The queen's? Tell me somewhat of them." The king is a grave-looking man, warlike and noble in his bearing, full of dignity and command, and looks, as indeed he is, the accomplished soldier and ruler. The queen is very beautiful, both in face and person, graciously condescending in the kind notice, and encouragement she accorded to myself, a young girl undergoing her first presentation. And what of the prince, their son, Lord Hamlet? I have heard my father speak of him as a student of great repute.

He says that he has won high academic honours, and that if he were not of royal birth he could make himself illustrious as a man of learning. Nay, he's even too much of the scholar for my taste, said the lively, Thira. He has dark, reflective eyes, which would be beautiful, but that he allows them to become absorbed in music. and speculation, instead of letting them discourse agreeable things. He has a handsome mouth, which he resigns to a meditative idleness, when he might give it its natural action and pleasant converse.

He is thoughtful when he should be amusing. He is absent when I want him to be attending to what I say, or to be inventing something to say to me. All this is owing to his studious habit, which, moreover, will, if he don't take care, spoil his figure, for he is inclined to fat, and a fat gentleman, though knowest, even though he be a prince, never form a lady's ideal of a man." What sort of man must he be, to embody Thira's idea of manly perfection?" said her young friend.

"'Nay, I cannot tell, not I,' replied Thira, with a momentary embarrassment. Then recovering herself she went on, "'Not such a man as my Lord Claudius, assuredly, he comes next to tell thee of. There's something marvellously unattractive to me about that lord. Though he be of blood-royal, he looks not noble. And though his lineage be high, he hath not lofty in his mean. And yet I cannot tell what ails me that I should not approve him. He is full of suavity, and is assiduous in his courtesies and attentions.

But they are too much on demand to seem very spontaneous. You shall catch him gnawing the hilt of his dagger in moody silence, and the next instant shall see him all smiles and ready adulation. His face changes too voluntary sudden for sincerity. He'll shift you his manner from sad brow to jest from abstracted to attentive at a moment's bidding. I never feel at ease in his company, and care not if he never came here again. But my father considers the visits of the King's brother an honour to our house, and so I receive him with as good a grace as I can muster."

"'Thira like a good daughter makes her own inclining spend to those of her father,' said Ophelia. "'You give me too much credit for filial submission, I fear,' returned she with a slight blush and a laugh. My father has hitherto given such free course to my likings that I can scarcely think he would wish me to fashion them by his. And yet, I know not." She paused, then resumed. There is the Lord Voltaimond.

But he is my father's friend, not mine. His forty-odd years, and his wise head claim affinity with sage or maturity than I can boast. He is no associate for my giddy self. Then there are Marcellus and Bernardo, two young officers of the King's Guard, true soldiers, light-hearted, pleasant rattlepates, with more valor than knowledge, more animal spirit than mental acquirement, but with all very agreeable companions, and their uniforms are a great help to make my saloon look bright and gay. You tell me chiefly of your gentlemen guests.

Have you no ladies among your visitors, dear Thyra?" "'Ah, true, there's no lack of ladies to make our parties complete,' said Thyra. But one court-lady is so like another court-lady, that as I was giving you an insight into to the character of the people you will meet, I naturally left out those who seldom can boast of much distinctive feature in that kind. But I am waxing impertinent, methinks. There are in good sadness some sweet women among our lady friends, but thou wilt find out those for thyself.

They are not among the formidable strangers I had to tell thee of. Let me see. Who else? Oh, I, there are Osric of Stoltsburgh, and Eric of Cronstein, two lords whose estates adjoined that of my father. You will often meet them here. Are they of the formidable class I may expect to see?" asked Ophelia. "'Truly I know not why I class them together, for they differ in every particular, save

in being provincial neighbors of ours. When we are in the country they are our constant guests. But the one is a youth, the other is a man. The one is boyish, the other manly. The one has mature ideas, the other no ideas at all. The young Lord of Stoltsburgh is a coxcomb. While the Lord of Cronstein is—is—is—well, perhaps—well, perhaps—well, perhaps—well, perhaps something very nearly ideal we spoke of ere now."

Thira paused a moment with a little conscious laugh, while she stole a glance at Ophelia's face, but she saw it looking so quiet, so girl-like innocent, that she went on. Perhaps it is from the contrast between these two lords that the one appears to me so greatly above the other. It is not every one who finds Cronstein so gifted or Stoltzburg so inane. One great advantage in public esteem the latter possesses over the former, which is that his domains are extensive, his land unencumbered, his positions exclusively within his own power, while the other lord has a magnificence of taste, which has led to rather a profuse expenditure,

and it is whispered that his estates are deeply mortgaged. This report has blunted worldly judgment and dulled the edge of its discrimination, in awarding the palm of merit between the two. General opinion lackeys, the rich lordling, and can scarcely allow the personal dessert of the accomplished but acre-dipped Cronstein. It is that my father and I differ widely in our estimate of their respective attractions. He favours the one, while I— While you judge the Lord of Cronstein to be the superior man, however he may be the poor

Lord," said Ophelia simply, filling up the paws in her friend's speech. "'Yes, dear novice,' rejoined Thyra, with another smile and shy glance at the quiet, unconscious face. I must call thee novice, dear Ophelia, thou seem'st to me so none like new to all worldly thoughts and ideas. Thou art a very child still, I do believe, though that grave face and sedate air of thine make thee seem a woman. I'll wager now. Thou hast scarce obtained the dignity of teens. You guess my age accurately, dear Thyra, I have scarce seen years enough to give me a claim

to equality of friendship with you, who must be well nigh half a dozen summers riper in wisdom than I. But I can make up in loving respect for thee, what I lack, and befitting qualities to give me claim upon thy liking. We will love and confide in each other entirely, as friends should. And be of all the greater mutual benefit for what there is dissimilar between us," said Thyra. My social experience shall help you in learning to face strangers, and thy novice candor shall teach me the beauty of unworldliness. Let me commence the lessons I am to give by initiating you in the mysteries of chess,

now the most fashionable of games. Is it so much played? I knew you were fond of it, for I see the board stand ever ready. But I knew not it was in general favor. Yes, for some time it was banished from court after that fatal game, famous in our Danish chronicles, when the sovereign dynasty was changed by a choleric blow with a chess-board. But of late the taste has revived,

and the game is pursued with greater zest than ever. We have some skillful players amongst us. The Lord of Cronstein is masterful at it. He was my instructor. When we were last at my father's country seat of Rosenheim, we played together daily. Then you are doubtless now a well-skilled player yourself, dear Thyra. I fear you will find me an unhopeful scholar," said Ophelia.

"'You are ingenuous, you are artless, you are unsuspicious, dear girl,' said Thyra, looking at her earnestly with affectionate admiration, and those seem unpromising qualities for attaining proficiency in a game where stratagem and connivance are main requisites, but vigilance, patience are also wanted, and these you have for certain. You're noticing that my chess-board is always at hand bespeaks an observant eye, and watchfulness may secure success, when over-eager craft rushes into the jaws of an unespied checkmate. But come, let us begin." At this moment an attendant entered.

"'I can see no visitors to-day,' Thyra said impatiently as she ranged the pieces on the board, signing to the servant to withdraw. See that I am denied to every one, and say that I receive this evening. I stated such to be your ladyship's orders," said the attendant. But my lord would take no refusal. He bade me carry up his name, and beseech that your ladyship would see him, for that he hath news which—' Then why does not announce his name, Sirah?" Interrupted the young lady.

Who is it? The Lord Eric of Cronstein, madam, was the reply. The colour flushed into Thyrus's face, but she said in a composed voice—that composure and command of voice which courtly breeding teaches. Give entrance to my lord of Cronstein. He doubtless brings intelligence from Rosenheim, from my father." Then as the servant quitted the room, she added, "'I make an exception in this visitor's favor, dear Phelia, because I think thou wilt feel

curiosity to see one of whom we have been speaking so much.' "'Your report was too favourable not to induce a wish to know him,' replied she. "'I shall be glad.' "'He is here,' said Thyra. Her manner showed so much agitation, so involuntary a delight, such blushing joy, that it could not have failed betraying her secret to one more versed in such tell-tale symptoms than her young companion. But Ophelia perceived in it only the pleasure and animation with which a friend preferred to

others, for his estimable qualities would naturally be welcomed. Besides, her attention was principally engaged by the newcomer. Not only did the description she had recently heard cause her to look at him with interest, but there was something in his appearance which struck her with a singular impression as of something remembered, something long since seen. She continued to gaze upon the face and figure as though they were a pictured image of some shadow in her memory. So complete was this effect of his appearance upon her, that she kept her eyes fixed upon him, with almost as unreserved a regard as if he had indeed been a portrait, instead of a living man. For him he was too much

engrossed by the greetings that took place between himself and Thyra, to perceive the attention with which the young lady's stranger was looking at him. Presently, however, her friend, recollecting her duty as hostess, performed the ceremony of introduction. He bowed courteously, and was about to resume his conversation, when something in the cursory glance he had bestowed upon Ophelia seemed to strike him also with a vague sense of recollection. He hesitated, looked at her, but seeming to obtain no confirmation of his passing fancy from what he saw, upon this second view of the tall, slight figure before him, he went on with what he was saying to the Lady Thyra. He asked, after all their mutual town acquaintance,

told her how dull Rosenheim had appeared after she had left it for Elsinor, but said that he had made a point of paying his duty there regularly to the Lord Cornelius, who had charged him with loving messages for his daughter, on hearing that he was about to ride to the metropolis. My lord, your father, desired me to say that he trusts many days will not elapse ere he he joins you here in Elsinor. But meantime, as I am returning to Rosenheim, he bade me ask you for a packet of papers which—' "'You return to Rosenheim, my lord. When? How soon?' was Thyra's hurried enquiry. "'Immediately, I am compelled—indeed I must—my presence just now is indispensable at my own poor place,' he said, in reply to the mute reproach conveyed by her eyes

and by the tone of her voice. But it will not be so for any time. The estate, ere long, reversed and contestably to—' He paused in the low-toned, but eager explanation he was pouring forth, But Thyra seemed satisfied with these few broken words. For, averting to the packet he had mentioned, she said, "'But these papers, my father, requires, my lord, did he say where they were to be found?' "'He bade me tell you you would find them in the ebbin cabinet by his study-chair, lady. This sealed packet with which he charged me for you, contains the key, together with more precise directions for your guidance.' "'I will seek them at once, my lord, since your return must needs be immediate.'

"'But remember,' she added, with a resumption of vivacity, Your friends in Elsinor will look eagerly for your coming soon among them again. Your stay at Rosenheim must be brief as may be. My own wishes will limit its duration to the shortest possible span, believe me, lady. They abide in Elsinor, even while necessity chains myself elsewhere. His eyes followed her, as she withdrew to fetch the packet, and when she disappeared he turned in an abstracted manner to the table on which the chess-board stood, and played mechanically with one of the pieces, twirling it round and round,

round upon its circular foot. Suddenly he seemed to remember that he was not alone, and that he owed some courtesy of attention to the young lady who sat there so silent and so still. He was about to address her with some slight remark, when upon raising his eyes towards her, he found hers fixed upon his face. Her look was so steadfast that it perplexed the gentleman—man man of the world as he was. He took up the chess-man and idled with it against his lip, in embarrassment of which he himself hardly understood the source. A slight incident will sometimes prompt a struggling memory, while vainly striving to help itself by recalling more important clues.

The form of the ivory piece caught Ophelia's eye, and suddenly she exclaimed, "'The knight! The white horse! I remember! The wood! Lord Eric! I, that was the name! I recollect it now! It was you, then, who—' Hush! Can it be possible?' was the hasty exclamation as he looked round to see that no one was near. "'Stef!' he muttered, the unopened rose-bud by all that's strange! How came she here! How came she to be there! You never returned! After Jutha became so altered, so ill! You never knew that she died! The lip blanched to well-nigh the whiteness of the chess-man that had lately touched

it. I knew you would be sorry for her when you came to hear of it. You were kind to her. You liked her. Poor Jutha! Be silent, I conjure you, young lady. Do not speak that name him again, it can do no good, it may do fearful harm, mischief, misery, more evil than you can conceive or ever could repair." He looked round again in great agitation and anxiety. Do not name her here, I entreat, I implore! His manner so earnest in its hurried supplication, had its effect upon Ophelia. But she answered in her own quiet way.

I have never mentioned her. She is unknown here. She had almost faded from my own thought as had your face and person. I hardly remembered you. I was a little child, then, at nurse in that remote country place." Her ingenuous look, her simple unconsciousness as she spoke, plainly told the man of the world that this innocent girl had no suspicion of the share he had had in the unhappy Jutha's fate.

His dark secret was safe. Could he but hope that she would never revive his victim's name, never repeat the tale of his forest visits, to others more clear-sighted, more experienced than herself. He summoned all his address to his aid. He told Ophelia how she herself had grown out of his knowledge, that he should not have recognized the little rustic she then appeared in the beautiful maiden, the young lady of noble birth and distinguished air, whom he at present beheld. He added, some flattering allusion to her family, said that her father, the Lord Polonius,

was known to him by reputation, as a statesman whose services were of the highest value to his country, and concluded by adroitly making it his request that she would never allude to any circumstances of their former meeting, as it was important to him, for reasons which he could not immediately explain, that he should not appear to be already known to her. Before Ophelia could well signify her acquiescence with his wish, Thira reappeared. Errik of Cronstein tarried not long after he had received the packet from her hands, promising to deliver it faithfully and speedily, he took a graceful leave of the two young ladies, and withdrew. They both remained silent for a considerable space, each occupied with her own thoughts.

Then Sirea, rousing herself from her reverie, said, Forgive me, sweet friend, that I am such dull company, so ill fulfil my part of your hostess and entertainer. Come, now for our first study of Chess. End of Part V. Part six of Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor. This Librovoc's recording is in the public domain, recording by Elizabeth Clet. Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinore. From the Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines by Mary Cowden Clark. Part 6.

The quiet chess mornings, the brilliant social evenings enjoyed with Thyra, made Ophelius time speed pleasantly away, while she could not but observe that at all seasons, at all hours, Eric of Cronstein was ever the favorite guest of her friend. When others were excluded, he was admitted. Before others arrived, he was already there. there, and after others had retired, he lingered, and always his advent and his stay were welcome. By his adroit management this was not markedly apparent to the world, but to one in such close companionship as Ophelia, it could not escape notice.

Once it was an evening when there was no assemblage of friends, the young ladies were deep in the absorbing interest of Thyro's favourite game, while the Lord of Cronstein stood by, as was his frequent won't, leaning over the back of her chair, watching the lesson she gave, suggesting the best moves on either side, and aiding the fair teacher with his superior knowledge. It grew late, and the game was not yet ended. Their excitement strengthened with every moment, for in the interest of the trial of skill, Cronstein had insensibly come to prompt Ophelia's moves exclusively, so that, in fact, Thyra and he were now playing against each other.

Her cheeks were heated, her eyes sparkled, as a chess-player's will, when the antagonism is at its height. At this moment the Lady Ophelia's coach, with Rinaldo, her father's confidential servant, and Gouda, her own woman, to attend her home, were announced as having arrived. "'Can it be so late? I had no thought of the hour. My lord, however unwillingly you must be inhospitably bidden good-night, we must play out the game to-morrow,' said Thyra.

We cannot leave it unfinished. Sleep would be impossible with the fate of that game undecided," exclaimed Eric impetuously. "'The Lady Ophelia will give orders that the equipas shall wait.' "'My mother especially bade me return without delay, when she should send for me this evening,' said Ophelia. "'It is my father's intention to take me with him to the palace to-morrow, to present me to their majesties, and he desired that I would be with him to-night ere he retired to rest, that he might speak some words of counsel he had to impress upon me.

I may not, tarry. Good night, Thyra. Good night, my lord. Thira, in returning her leave-taking, evidently expected that the Lord of Cronstein would retire at the same time, but he, declaring that the game of chess must be played out, in order to let Ophelia know its decision on the morrow, threw himself into the chair she had just quitted,

showing that he was resolved to stay. Thyra, in pretty, blushing confusion, partly eagerness and pleasure, partly hesitation, submitted to his arrangement, and reseated herself at the chess-table, bidding her friend be sure to let her see her immediately on her return from her first court visit. In one of the large apartments of the palace on the following day, sat a lady, surrounded by her attendant ladies, working at a tapestry frame. In a deep, imbade window at some distance from her, stood a man, leaning just within the recess, regarding her earnestly from beneath his bent brows and drooping

lids. Not a bend of her handsome head, not an inclination of that polished throat, not a sweeping line of those white falling shoulders, not a curve of those voluptuously rounded arms, or a single movement of her ample but finely moulded figure, as it inclined over her work, escaped the eye so greedily noting every particular of her luxuriant beauty. admiration lurked in the looks with which he stealthily devoured her person, while all the while his attention was apparently devoted to feeding and playing with a hawk which sat upon an ornamented perch in the recessed window where he leaned. The man was Claudius, the king's brother, the lady

was Queen Gertrude. The weather had been unusually warm, the soft afternoon air crept in by the open windows, and through the apartment there reigned the silence that grows with a sense of enjoyment and refreshment. It had for some time been preserved unbroken, safe by the drawing through of the tapestry stitches, and the occasional restlessness of the hawk, pecking and biting at the teasing finger, when one of the attendant ladies exclaimed, "'His Majesty the King, madam?' Gertrude rose to receive her royal husband. He came to tell her of letters that had arrived from Wittenberg, bringing news of fresh academic honours attained by their son Hamlet. One from himself, containing loving and

and dutious greetings to his parents, with tidings of his health and welfare, and other dispatches from the royal forces engaged in northern warfare, which had terminated in conquest to Denmark. The King concluded by saying that so much happy intelligence arriving on one day, deserved marking by some token of remembrance, and that he had brought one in the shape of a gemmed bracelet, which he prayed her to wear as the gift, not only of a proud and happy father, and of a rejoicing monarch, but as that of a loving husband. As the king fondly leant over the beautiful arm presented to him, that he might clasp the

jewel upon it, a sharp inward groan burst from the lips of Claudius. "'My brother!' exclaimed the king, "'I did not perceive your presence. Are you not well, my Claudius?' he added, approaching the recess where he leaned. "'That cry you could not suppress, your change of colour! Your face is pale, man, you are in pain! I have more than once noted that ashy hue steel upon your face. Tell me, tell your brother what you ail." An old wound, a hurt, tis nothing," he answered, looking down. Or if, and he turned to the king, with a ghastly attempt to smile off his embarrassment,—'

"'Tis but what reminds me that I have been a soldier, and long for an occasion to efface the old rankle with a few new scratches. It has scarred over, ere properly healed, it must be looked to,' said the king. "'It will never heal,' the other muttered bitterly. writhing as he withdrew from the hand laid in brotherly kindness on his shoulder. "'Our own leech shall examine it,' the king said in his gentle but earnest manner. "'You must not thus neglect health most dear to us. Your grace shall pardon me.

No leech-craft may avail. Tis beyond the physician's skill. I have learned to think it cannot be relieved. I will school myself to be more patient, more silent, endurance. You shall hear no more such weak betrayals.' Sweet Gertrude, come hither, use you your womanly persuasion with this refractory brother of ours, to have his hurt examined. I will not believe it beyond cure." As the queen advanced in obedience to her royal husband's bidding, and approached the spot where

they stood, the king took her hand, and, placing it on his brother's arm, said, I expect no less from the gentle power of my Gertrude's words, which as her loving husband I am free to confess, he said, as he regarded her with an affectionate smile. Then that I shall find on my return they have won our brother to our wish. The summer afternoon wooes me forth to walk a while in mine orchard. Meantime prosper you in your suit, my queen. He left them thus standing beside each other, Gertrude's hand where he had placed it on his brother's arm. But when the king had left the apartment, she withdrew her hand and retired a pace or two from her close vicinity to Claudius.

He breathed hard, and there was almost a fierceness in the tone with which he uttered the words, He bad you sue me, madam. Your suit, your will, what have you to urge? Let me hear you plead, you plead to me. But come, what ist?" Your wound, my lord, consent that it shall be looked to. There might be relief. He turned abruptly, and looked at her, as he said, "'You would have it relieved—cured—' "'Assuredly, my good lord, our leech is renowned in skill. He will, I doubt not—' Again he interrupted her. I speak not of the leech. But this—' This old wound of mine, this deep-seated scorching pain here, this corroding torture ever gnawing in and in till vitality itself is the prey, would you have it relieved, cured, if relief and cure were in your own gift?"

He dropped his voice to a whisper as he uttered the last few words, though the whole conversation had taken place in a low tone, which could not reach the spot where the attendant-lady sat, round the tapestry frame at the farther end of the room. Gertrude said, in a manner as natural and unconcerned as she could make it, "'Can you doubt it, my lord?' Willful misunderstanding sometimes betrays deepest consciousness. Claudius felt this as he looked at the varying cheek which belied the assumed composure of manner, and saw that she knew his full meaning.

"'Then pity me. This wound is probed to the quick. It's festering, smart, is tented, past concealment of the anguish I endure, when he makes me the witness of his licensed endearments. He hurried on, hissing serpent-like, his torrent of scarce-suppressed, passionate words. Can I calmly see him fondle that arm which I so many times have thirsted to press to these throbbing lips? A loving husband, forsooth.

Why, his is a tame affection which can leave a wife to go sleep in the shade of a cool orchard, while mine is a burning passion that consumes me. Ardre such as mine befits a loving husband, not the pealing correct. of that dotard. "'My lord, remember you of whom you speak, of your brother, your king, my husband.' "'I, madam, your husband, your loving husband,' he ground his teeth muttering a curse. The very hem of your garment stirs me to more adoring warmth than he is capable of feeling, from the possession of all that he hath in right of loving husbandship,' he presumed to add,

as he clenched within his hand the end of a light drapery which formed part of her attire. "'You presume on my forbearance, my lord,' exclaimed the Queen. "'You cannot believe that I will listen longer to such rash speech!' She would have withdrawn from the recessed window, but, perceiving that a portion of her robe was within his grasp, she feared lest the movement might attract the attention of her ladies to this circumstance, and so betray to them what was passing. A various trifle such as this will suffice to sway the conduct of a weak-souled woman. At this moment an attendant entered to announce that the Lord Polonius,

and his daughter, the Lady Ophelia, craved audience of her majesty. "'Conduct them to the Presence-Chamber,' said the Queen. I will receive them there." The edge of robing was still detained for an instant. Then she felt it suddenly released, and she was free to go. She moved away from the side of Claudius, without suffering her eyes to look towards him. And attended by her ladies, she left the apartment.

As she proceeded along a gallery of the palace on her way to the State-chamber, one of her train of ladies exclaimed, lifting the end of the embroidered drapery which floated from the Queen's shoulders. "'See here, madam! Some treacherous doorway hath torn away a fragment from your Majesty's attire. The piece is fairly wrenched out. Alack! the beauty of the robe is marred!' "'Get other tires ready.

I will exchange these anon when my Lord Polonia shall have taken leave,' said Queen Gertrude. It must needs have been some unheeded violence of a closing door, or other like accident. is no matter." A passing sweet temper hath her majesty, to regard the wreck of such embroidery as that, without so much as a fretful word, thought the lady in waiting. And so you found our queen no less gracious than I had painted her to you, said Thyra, to Ophelia, when next the two friends sat together to discuss the grand event of court presentation.

She was indeed all that a young creature could desire of considerate and encouraging. She condescended to make it her express desire that my father would bring me frequently to the palace and future. And while thou hast been basking in the sunshine of royal smiles, and court favour, poor I have been yawning in the vapid atmosphere of foppery and folly, of cockscumry and pretension. Ah, I can tell, then, who hath been thy guest this morning, Thyra, young Azrik of Stodzburg was not, he hath never thy good word I know. Doth he deserve one?

Is he not an insufferable frost? an intolerable bubble of emptiness. He thinks to play the accomplished gentleman by affecting modish phraseology and adopting fashionable whims of speech. See how he minces his mother tongue in his mispronouncings. Let me arrange your layship's men for you,

the knots, bashups, pones, and so. You shall take none other than the red, a blushing foil to your laship's fingers. Your lash-ship advances your king's pown. Tis well. The forward Varlet's suffers capture in a trice for his presumption. "'In a trace! In a trace!' interrupted Ophelia, laughing at her friend's imitation of the young lordling's manner. True, in a trace for his presumption.

This same game of chess your lawship favours, with so much of your lawship's good-locking, his exceeding dainty sport, have ingenious de Vass, very subject to contravence, very suggestive to skill, a most pleasing past-torn. in a very exacting encounter. But your la ship is playing oddly. Have a care twill be a drone game." And thus was my morning droned away with his foolish buzzing and wasp-like impertinence. Nay, he is but a butterfly, tost thou who art waspish, Thyra, to be vexed with so harmless an insect. He does but flutter to and fro, displaying his gay-painted coat, vainly and vain, but leaving no venom, inflicting no sting. But I tell thee, Ophelia, there is sting in his presence

for me. My father hath, I know, set his heart on bringing about a match between this silly fly and myself. Now, though I do not believe that young Osric hath one thought of the kind, for all his hoverings round me, yet I fear, lest an inkling of my father's wish should generate that which his own brain could scarce originate, an idea, and that idea the one of wooing me to be his wife. "'Thou dost not desire to be a wife, Thira?' "'I say not that,' said Thira, blushing. "'But I desire not to be Osric's wife.'

"'I will tell thee honestly, dear girl. There is a man whose wife I could wish to be, whose wife I hope to be, a man whom I love and who loves me, a man whom it is in honour to love, and whose love it is a pride to have won. But this man cannot ask me to become his wife until the redemption of his patrimony for mortgage shall give him a right to claim me openly of my father. And meantime you cannot wonder that I should wish to keep all suitors at a distance, who might win his consent, before my lover himself dare come forward to seek it."

And this lover is,——no other than Eric of Cronstein—you surely must have guessed our attachment—you who have seen us so much together, dear friend. You forget that I have inexperienced eyes. I am, as you call me yourself, dear Thyra, quite a novice in such matters," said the smiling Ophelia. "'You are innocent simplicity itself, sweet friend, as a girl of your years should be. Still I thought she must have seen how it was with Eric and myself. We have exchanged hearts.

We are plighted to each other by the most solemn vows. He has more than once told me he looks upon me as his affianced bride, his wedded wife. I regard him as my husband, and feel that no power on earth should make me give myself to any other than Eric of Cronstein. He tells me that less than half a year will see him reinstated in full possession of his estates, and that then he can ask me of my father with good hope of success. Until that period, therefore, tis of the utmost importance our secret should not transpire. But I could not have felt true to the confidence I have professed in my friend Ophelia had

it longer been withheld from her?" The young girls embraced lovingly and heartily, as Thyra received the assurance that her secret should be faithfully preserved. Some months had elapsed since the last conversation. One evening, as the friends sat together, the hours grew, and with them the impatience of Thyra. She was expecting Lord Eric, who had promised to come. But still the time for his appearance went by, and he came not.

His visits now were generally at a late hour, but night drew on, and yet he came not. Ophelia's attendant arrived with the coach to fetch her home, and she left her friend, pacing to and fro in the grounds by starlight, unwilling to abandon the hope of his coming even then. But as Ophelia reached the garden-gate, and was about to step into her coach, she perceived Trasco, Lord Eric's servant, he entered the grounds, and she could see him deliver a letter to her friend, who, placing it in her bosom, hurried back to the house. Next morning at an early hour Polonius entered the apartment where his wife and daughter were, and by the ostentatious perturbation of his manner, evidently desire that they should ask what

was the matter, the Lady Udra dutifully did so. He told her that he had that moment received intelligence of a circumstance which had occasioned great consternation in certain quarters. It was reported that Lord Eric of Cronstein, whose affairs were long suspected to be in an embarrassed state, was discovered to be utterly ruined, that he had accumulated debts of large amount, that he had gambled away his patrimonial estate, that he was not worth a farthing, and that in order to escape from the crowd of demands which pressed upon him, he had, last night, under favor of darkness, embarked in a vessel bound for the archipelago.

His creditors were outrageous, and Polonius added that he had reason to believe many gentlemen of high rank were among the most furious against him, on account of the numerous debts of honor which were thus left uncanceled. I confess I cannot feel much concern for them. They are probably, for the most part, little better than himself, gamblers and spendthrifts, said Udra. My dear, your virtue makes you hard upon fashionable follies, said her husband. Conscious of our own integrity, we should be lenient to others more exposed to temptation.

You can scarcely judge of those which beset young noblemen of spirit, and with means at their own disposal. But their spirit sometimes leads them to use means not at their own disposal. This Lord Eric of Cranstein, which he staked at the gaming table, sums that were not in his rightful possession, was guilty of more than folly. He acted basely, unjustly. Besides, if my memory serve, I have heard this same Lord of Cronstein accused of even worse vices than gambling. It has whispered that he is a libertine, a practised seducer.

My good lady, how often must I caution you against giving credit to whispers, and hearsay, when they affect the character of those in high station! It is the vice of the envious to slander those with whom they cannot aspire to be equal. Besides, you are too strict, too austere in your judgment of such matters. These are scarcely more than pardonable errors, faults and follies to be expected in a handsome young fellow of his rank and age. As I have understood, this Cranstein is not so very young. He has reached years that ought to be of discretion very long since."

"'I—well, it may be so. I know not of my own personal knowledge. But I must not tarry here. I must away to a privy council meeting that sits this morning. His Majesty laid his gracious commands on me to let him have, without fail, the help of this poor brain of mine. He is pleased to think it of some little avail and weighty questions that concern the state.

Well, well, it may be so. It may be so." Away hurried the courtier. And the silence that ensued after his departure was first broken by Ophelia's asking her mother, What did you mean by calling Lord Eric of Cronstein, a libertine, a seducer? I never heard the words." The Lady Udra looked at her daughter with a tender earnestness. The better for mine innocent child that she has never heard them, never known their meaning.

Better still could she have remained in ignorance ever more of their evil in port. But my Ophelia will soon be a woman. She will mix with the world. She will encounter the ill as well as the good that exists there. She will find that men's natures are compounded of vice as a virtue, that they are capable of sinful and harmful deeds as well as highest and most meritorious actions, that they oft-times work mischief instead of benefit, woe instead of weal, and that guile frequently lurks beneath the most specious seeming.

To guard her against such sinister assailants, tis needful she should know the nature of her danger, a danger most imminent in the sphere to which she is destined, a court. Gradually then, and very heedfully did this tender mother lift the veil from her young daughter's mind. She told her how the selfishness of man, frequently under the pretence of love for his victim, sacrifices her innocence, blasts her good name, betrays her to shame and misery, and then leaves her to ruin, to utter perdition. Discrace, pollution, wreck of fair honor, peril of body and soul follow in the track of such a villain's footsteps, wherever his fatal admiration chances to light, said Udra vehemently.

And such deeds are called fashionable follies, and pardonable errors of youth. The world is charitable in the allowances it makes for the worker of all this evil, though severely tyrannous to the injured party. But let the multitude be tolerant as it will, to the titled Libertine. I, for my part, must ever hold deliberate seduction as one of the most heinous of crimes, and continue to manifest my abhorrence of the seducer in proportion with my estimate of his guilt. I hold it to be a base guilt, a cruel guilt. Tis the advantage taken by knowledge of ignorance, by selfishness of generosity, tis the infliction of deadly injury

beneath the mask of feigned love. Tis cowardice and treachery in one, and in the vilest form. Shame, double shame, on the betrayer rather than on the betrayed. But such a betrayer, A libertine, a seducer, you believe Lord Eric of Cronstein to be. Such I have heard him described, by one, too, who thought she was doing him honour, fixing another feather in the cap of his gentlemanly qualifications, in ascribing to him such a character. A man of gallantry is, I believe, the polite term, a gallant action truly, to win the trust and love of a poor maid, and then requite her with destruction.

"'My poor friend! And this is the man she deems worthy of all esteem and liking! To whom she has given her whole heart!' exclaimed Ophelia. "'T will be best kindness to her now to reveal her secret to you, my mother, that we may have your experience and counsel to aid her. Can we not save her from committing her fate irrevocably to such a man's care? But he is gone. Still the knowledge of his worthlessness will help to console her for his loss.'

Hastily she told her mother of Thyra's attachment for Cronstein, of all she knew of him herself, of her former meeting with him, of his request that she would not revert to it, and then, as the story of Jutha was unfolded, owing to the recent better knowledge she had acquired, it struck herself with a new significance, while to the Lady Udra it revealed a fearful tale of sorrow and wrong. I should have been with thee, my child, told at the time as it occurred and as it then struck thee to a mother's ear, all might have been well. A child should ever have at hand, her to whom every scene, every event, together with the ideas they may engender, can be confided. But even

yet, with much mischief may be prevented. We will hasten to your friend Thyra, to warn her against the evil she can avoid, to comfort her in the grief she will have to endure. End of Part six. Part seven of Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor. This Librovoc's recording is in the public domain. Recording by Elizabeth Clette. Ophelia, the Rose of Elsinor, from the Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, by Mary Cowden Clark. Part 7. On arriving at Cornelius's mansion they found from her attendance that the Lady Thyra had not yet left her room. She lies late ordinarily, dear mother. Let us seek her in her chamber. Her friend Ophelia is

privileged to come to her rooms at all seasons, even when she is, and she is, and she is, and is, as now, a slug a bed." She went at once to the sleeping apartment. She saw at a glance that Thyra was not lying there, but as she was retiring, something within the curtains at the bed's foot caught her eye. It was the figure of her friend, half hidden among them. Ophelia went gently forwards, to embrace her, but as she extended her arms to wrap about Thyra's form, it swung heavily away from her, a mere heap of inanimate matter, an image,

A course. It was the dead body of Thyra, hanging where her own desperate hand had stifled out life. Near to her was afterwards found a paper with these words. My father—forgive your lost child. O lost!—lost indeed! Every way lost! You destined my hand to one whom I could not love. I pledged faith, affection, honour, all to one whom I loved only too well. He whom I so fatally trusted has proved faults. He fled. What has left me but to die! Deal indulgently by my memory for the sake of what I was to you, when an innocent child at your knee your blessing rested on my head.

Let the thought of me as I was then be all that shall live in your remembrance of—Thira." When Ophelia was lifted from the floor, where she had fallen prostrate, she was in strong convulsions, the shock she had received produced a severe illness. For a long space she She lay in the utmost danger, now wandering in delirium, now sunk into a heavy stupor. From one of these deep sleep she once awoke, stretching forth her hand feebly, and uttering a faint word or two. Her mother, who had never quit at her side, perceived the movement, and bent over her, to catch the sense of the murmured sound.

"'Is the king dead?' "'I trust not, dear one. He is absent in Norway, and the last dispatches brought intelligence of his safety. "'Me thought I saw him dead,' said Ophelia. "'I have been dreaming strangely.' Her mother spoke soothingly, striving to compose and divert her attention from dwelling upon this. She smoothed and arranged the pillow beneath the feverish head, and put some cool beverage to the parched lips, whispering the while, loving, cheerful words.

But Ophelia reverted to the theme, and her mother, finding her inclined to speak in that she did so with none of the agitation which marked her words when she wandered, Let her muse on, thus half-aloud. He seemed dead as I saw him, though he moved before me, waving his arm toward them. He pointed to them as each appeared. Of whom do you speak, dear child? Of those figures, those women. It was down by the brook, among the reeds beneath the willow,

Not the stream in the wood, but the brook yonder which flows into the castle-mote. That solitary spot, all rush-grown and shadowy, where the water creeps on sluggish, and slow, margined by rank grass and river-weeds. You remember?" Her mother gave token of assent. It was there she sat, the first figure that I saw. The night was obscure. The clouds scudded athwart the sky.

The moon's light struggled feebly through them. There was a veil of haze upon tree and shrub and brook. But I saw her plainly, and knew her at once, though her long hair fell drooping over her knees as she sat. I knew her before she shook it back, and wrung her hand. and moaned over the little white face that lay upon her bosom. It was Jutha, mother." The Lady Udur would fain if prevented Ophelia from proceeding, but she feared to do harm by checking

her and her evident desire to speak on. I would have gone towards her, but my feet were rooted to the spot. While close behind me there gradually shaped itself into substance a form that seemed to grow out of the shadowy night air, it became the distinct semblance of the King, as I saw him ride to the Norwegian wars and coat of armour, and with truncheon in hand not long since, save that his face in lieu of being lighted with hope of conquest, lifelike and animated, was pale and all-amort, ghastly and set in death. He turned this one visage full upon me as he pointed to the figure of her who sat lamenting,

and then she vanished. "'Dear Ophelia, thou shalt not recall these sad images. Let me tell thee, dear one, of thy father who—' But there were two others I saw. One was my poor Thyra. I knew her by a terrible token. And Ophelia's voice became nearly extinct, as she added. Her livid throat, mother, and there was a space between her feet and the ground as she glided past me. A moment's pause, and then Ophelia went on. But she faded out of my ken also, as the mailed figure again stretched forth his pointing hand. The wind sighed amid

the reeds. The heads of nettles and long purples were stirred by the night-breeze as it swept on mournfully. The air seemed laden with heavy sobbing. Then I saw one approach whose face I could not see, and whose figure I knew not. She was clothed in white, all hung about with weeds and wild-flowers, and from among them stuck ends of straw that the shadowy hand seemed to pluck and spurn at. The armed royalty waved sternly, but as if involuntarily commanded by yet a higher power than his own will, and then the white figure moved on, impelled towards the water, I saw her glide on, floating upon its surface. I saw her dimly among the silver-leaved branches of the drooping willow, as they waved around and above her, up buoyed by her spreading white garments.

The mother shuddered as her eye fell upon the white night-gear of her child, telling the vision. But at this moment Polonius softly entered the room, having heard from Gouda that his daughter had awakened better, and that she was talking more collectively than she had done since her illness. He was soon busily engaged in his half-fussy, half-kindly manner, chiding Udra for indulging Ophelia with too much license of speech, and making many remarks equally sapient and facetious on women's love of talk, their proneness for confabulation and gossip. "'They will let each other talk, rather than not have talk toward,' said he.

"'But you, lady-wife, and you, my girl, must be patient yet awhile, and let rest and perfect silence do their work. Quiet is restorative. Give it its full trial beseech you.' Thanks to Udra's tender nursing, Ophelia was restored to health, but a more severe blow than any she had yet sustained now awaited her. Death which had spared herself took her mother from her. It is true that the anguish of sudden separation was not theirs.

For some time Udra lingered, hers was a gradual decay, without pain, and without loss of faculty. She was able to give her child those counsels which should best protect her in her approaching entrance upon the world's experience, while the daughter was permitted the comfort of yielding the gentle ministerings, the loving tendance which best alleviate sickness and suffering. The anxious mother would often recur to the nature of the perils, which most peculiarly threaten a young maiden introduced for the first time to the society of men of the world—men her superiors in rank as an artful experience, and from the exercise of which art to her prejudice no conscientious scruples would deter them.

The mother thought it behoved her in a special manner to guard Ophelia by this pre-knowledge of the dangers that would environ her, when left alone, as she felt her child must soon be, with no female guidance, no other protection than her own heart. And how was this heart to counsel her, were it not previously fortified and instructed by an understanding of its probable hazards, and of its best sources of defence against them? Udra deplored the necessity that existed for thus forestalling in her daughter's mind, an acquaintance with the existence of vice, but she felt it to be a necessity, and she did not shrink from the performance of her duty.

She consoled herself also with the reflection that to learn the nature of vice is not to become acquainted with vice itself, or the practice of vice. That to know of evil is not to know evil, that to perceive the perils of sin is no allurement to sin. On the contrary, she felt that a virtuous nature as instinctively shrinks from the pollution of crime, as purity recoils from mingling with impurity. There subsists mutual repugnance to combine. She therefore hesitated not to point out evil to her young daughter, as the surest means of averting it.

"'But not only, my child,' Udra once said, "'have I to caution you against the viciously disposed young men. Even with their best simulation there is something that betrays itself of such men's real propensities to act as a warning and a repellent to one of pure inclinations. There is Claudius, the king's brother, for instance, a licentious, unscrupulous man, who, unless my instincts have played me false, and done him grievous injustice, would be restricted by no consideration of honour or duty in the pursuit of his desires. From such coarse homage as his, were it offered to her, my child's own delicacy and native good feeling would at once prompt her to shrink. It is the good, the gentle, the refined in manner, the accomplished in speech and deportment,

the cultivated in imagination and intellect against whom my daughter must also learn to guard her heart, lest such qualities betray her into a premature gift of that heart, fatal to her peace of mind. Tell me, my child. It is to your own mother you are speaking, remember. Tell me if you know one thus distinguished. Ophelia was standing behind the large chair in which Udha reclined, so that her face was unseen. But as she leaned over and kissed the wan cheek, her mother felt the glow she could not behold. Since I have heard that His Highness the Lord Hamlet has returned from Wittenberg, said Udra, I have always believed that you, dear child, could not fail to note in him

the maturity of those excellences, of which I remember he gave such fruitful token in earliest youth. Even then I could foresee what the future man would be, from the nobleness of nature, which shone conspicuous in every word and deed of the young prince. He was, in truth, a royal child, a noble boy. And as he grew into manhood, I still marked, on each of his successive returns to Elsinor, how worthily he fulfilled the promise of his boyhood. Such a mind and heart as his, seen as they are through those dark expressive eyes, now full

of intellectual fire, now softened by sensibility, seen as they are through his most beautiful smile, a smile peculiarly his, so gentle, yet so arch, so pregnant of meaning, so persuasive in its sweet fascination, can scarcely fail of winning for him the favour of any woman whom he should seek to interest. But must the yielding him her favourable thoughts be so fatal a surrender, for the woman whom he could truly love, whispered Ophelia. For her whom he could love, truly, and in truth love, no, assuredly no, said Udra. Were woman well convinced that she had indeed become possessed of his true affection, she

She would but exchange a mutual treasure in the full bestowal of her heart's best feeling upon such a man as Hamlet. But let her be sure—entirely sure of his love for her. Let her beware that his thought is as deeply fixed upon her as hers could be upon him, ere she allow her own to occupy itself too curiously with his merits. Let her securely know that his heart is firm, set in constancy and truth towards her, ere she weakly suffer her imagination to become enamoured of excellences, only too well-calculculpt to inspire a passion, which, if hopeless, would be fatal to her peace of mind. Thus it came, that from her mother's warning at this time, as from her father's and her brother's

admonitions at a subsequent period, Ophelia had the perils which awaited her in her future life at court, peculiarly impressed upon her mind. After the Lady Udra's death, both the King and the Queen made it their study by their tenderness and almost parental kindness of attention to the motherless girl, to lighten the affliction of her loss. They were, and their behaviour to her, rather like affectionate and gracious friends, than her sovereigns. They showed by their eagerness to have her as much as possible with them, that they would fain

act the part of loving relations by her, and she soon learned to regard them with as fond and attachment. The Prince Hamlet joined his royal parents in their attempt to soften the grief of Ophelia, and in this gentle task his own growing preference for her gained strength and fixedness of purpose. His kindness and sympathy were enlisted in her behalf. His refined taste was attracted by her maiden beauty. His delicacy of feeling taught him to delight in her innocence, her modesty, her retiring

diffidence. His masculine intellect found repose in the contemplation of her artless mind, her untaught simplicity, her ingenuous character. His manly soul dwelt with a kind of serene rapture on the sweet feminine softness of her nature. As time went on, tokens of his increasing regard, awoke a responsive feeling in her breast towards him. But while this fair flower of love was springing up between them, near to it lurked in unsuspected rankness of growth the foul, unwholesome

weed of a forbidden passion. It happened that a courser of matchless breed was sent from a distant court, as a present to that of Denmark. The king bestowed the gift on his son, Hamlet, and one morning, Queen Gertrude and Ophelia were leaning from the balcony of a window overlooking the courtyard of the castle, that they might watch the prince as he went through the varied paces, and tried the several merits of the high-metalled horse. The interest of the sight absorbed them wholly. Their eyes were riveted upon the animated scene below, and they were unconscious that anyone

was in the room near them, when Claudius stepped close to where the queen was bending forward, and standing just within the open window that led on to the balcony a few paces behind her, he murmured,—' This has slipped from your majesty's arm. She turned and saw that he had just picked up from the floor her bracelet, which he held towards her, but not within reach. Will your grace receive it at my hand, he said, without tendering it any nearer, but holding it as it were, in a manner of a lure, that she might step within the room from the balcony. She did so, saying, "'I thank you, my lord, for the pains you have taken, that I should not

lose what I prize so highly.' "'You may requite them,' he said, "'yonder silken trifle, that heavie-he ribbon, blushing and fragrant, a carnation set midst lilies," he continued, pointing to a crimson notch he wore upon her bosom, "'Shall be rich ransom for the jewel!' Were it not for the young girl so near to us, for whose innocent sake I indulge you with this lowered voice, my lord, you should not dare speak thus," said Gertrude, glancing towards the balcony where she had left Ophelia. I rejoice in her presence, or in aught else, that procures me this concession,

this chance. Could you know the fever of solicitude which I have watched for such a precious moment? Could you know the anguish of seeing you ever near, yet ever removed from my—my lord, I entreat, I insist no more—' interrupted the queen. Give me the bracelet. Not without its ransom. The last token was torn from you. This, I am resolved, shall be yielded of your own grace, accorded to me by your pity. That womanly heart could it only know how sorely I need comfort, would not refuse me its compassion." He saw that she could not hear unmoved and allusion to his unhappiness, offspring, though it was, of a criminal passion.

In such a woman as Gertrude, the sight of the influence her beauty had upon his senses, excited involuntary interest. There was that in her voluptuous nature which responded instinctively to the luxurious ardour of the passion he had dared to conceive and avow. Instead of in her heart resenting, and by her manner repelling the boldness of his warmth, instead of resisting its effect upon herself, and repressing its expression in him, she could not help yielding to the secret guilty pleasure of knowing it to exist. She allowed herself to contrast its unhallowed fire with the pure love of her wedded

Lord, and sensually judged the one seemed superior in fervor to the other. The wife who admits such thoughts, so judging, is already adulterate in spirit. Yet still her feeble soul struggled to preserve a show of virtuous indignation at the insult of his admiration. "'Know you to whom you speak, my lord? Do you remember that I am a wife?' she said in reply to his last speech. "'Too fatally, and that you are not mine!' He struck his forehead with his clenched hand.

"'Sease, sir. Think that I am your brothers, your queen. You strain our patience. And do you owe me no indemnity for that which I have shown in my long silenced? and torture. Let me have the token I covet, or I keep the gem. You abuse your advantage, my lord. Misery breeds selfishness, he replied. I have bided too long in bitter, hopeless misery, to neglect the one poor gain within my power. Grant me the silken toy. I dare not let my husband miss his gift from my arm, said the queen, hastily detaching the ribbon. Neighbored, as this has been,

a thousand times more precious, he exclaimed, as he snatched the breast-knot to his lips, and returned her the jewel. Within a week of that time the realm of Denmark was thrown into dismay by the sudden death of its monarch, the good king, so it was reported, while sleeping, as was his afternoon wont, in the orchard which formed part of the palace grounds, had been stung by a serpent, and from the venom inflicted by the wound, he had instantly sickened and died. the nation could recover from its consternation, and while the rightful heir to the crown was plunged in filial grief, Claudius seized the crown, and caused himself to be proclaimed

king. So artfully had all his plans been laid, so resolutely and so promptly did he carry them all out, that he established his claims to the succession, or rather fixed himself firmly in the possession of his usurped dominion, before the public voice, on behalf of its lawful prince, could be upraised to dispute his pretensions. Scarcely had this first bold step been securely taken when it was followed up by the solemnity of coronation, and shortly after by the ceremonial of marriage between the reigning monarch and his late brother's widow. The habitual acquiescence with which royal proceedings are, for the most part, regarded

by the populace, could hardly restrain the expressions of amazement and dissatisfaction, which these events excited. But they occurred in such rapid succession, were carried with so high a hand, and were executed so peremptorly, that they passed. passed without open murmurs, without attempted opposition. Moreover, the lavish splendor with which the two rights of royal marriage and coronation were solemnized, had their effect upon the vulgar mind in causing them to be regarded with curiosity and interest, rather than with reprobation. Claudius knew the full advantage of investing his royal proceedings with the glare of pomp

and ostentation, as a means of dazzling the public eye, and he emitted no circumstance that could blind its judgment. He caused the rumor of the surpassing magnificence which was to mark the approaching ceremonies at the Danish court, to be spread far and wide, and among the many attracted from a distance to witness so gorgeous a scene, young Laertes, Ophelia's brother, came from France, that he might be present. He was pleased with this opportunity for spending some time with a sister whom he so tenderly loved, for though during their life they had been much separated, yet in those intervals that they had been together, he had learned to appreciate and love the modest worth, the affectionate

nature of this gentle being. Besides, they had been in the habit of corresponding with one another by letter, and thus the attachment between them had been maintained and cemented. To this means of intercourse he reverted, when, the regal pageant concluded, Laertes prepared to return to France. As he bade her farewell, he prayed her to let no long time elapse or he should hear from her. And she, in her own quiet, though earnest way, in her own simple sincerity of manner, replied, do you doubt that what to this was sequent thou knowest already end of part seven and of ophelia the rose of elsinor by mary Cowden clark