;

to hurt you? I unsay it. Do not turn from me! We will make a shift. Leave me the Parliament if they give us ever so little help, I will make it answer. They are sitting, and that is a great thing; that almost gives us their sanction. Let them keep their money, if it must be so; what we want most

But whatever

is the reputation of the people's help. sum they offer we will accept; for the smallest grant. tells Scotland that Parliament is on our side. What will they give us?'

'Alas!'

'We never expected to get all we asked for. How much will it be?'

'Have you not heard?' falters Charles.

'Heard what?

terrible !'

Speak at once, sir! This grows

The King continues silent, and at last Strafford exclaims You have dissolved Parliament; but I will not leave you. O God, my last hope of winning your love is lost! Your heart is cold as stone ! Now I see your perfidy! Shall I tell Pym?'

Here he is interrupted by the entrance of the very man he is speaking of. Hampden, Vane, and other patriots follow. Charles is speechless; but Strafford tells the rebels, as he calls them, that he and his master have acted in perfect harmony. When the King has left them, Pym reminds his enemy how he said, as they parted eleven years before, 'Do

you leave us, Wentworth? While your head is on your shoulders I will not leave you;' and adds, 'We shall meet again.'

'So be it,' replies the Earl. 'And what if an army follows me?'

'His friends will take care of your army,' answers Vane.

To protect Strafford against indignant patriots, jealous courtiers, and a faithless king, he has no friend but the gentle Lady Carlisle, who, much as she grieves to find him love Charles more than her, respects his devotion too much to tell him how sadly it is wasted. As he departs for Scotland, she gives him a curl of her glossy hair; and when he calls her the lingering golden streak in the evening of his good fortune, she answers, 'When the eve has its last streak, the night has its first star.'

Soon she hears that he is returning defeated and disgraced, and that his enemies, who are now assembled in the famous Long Parliament, are about to impeach him. She begs the King to dissolve them. But before this is done by the dilatory and irresolute Charles, Strafford comes to tell her that he has proofs to show that not only the patriot leaders, but the courtiers, have held treasonable correspondence with the Scottish rebels. He goes to the House of Lords, accompanied by a great army of followers. Pym is there already. Before Strafford can begin to accuse his enemies, he

is impeached himself and forced to leave the House. The usher demands his sword in the name of the Commons. He draws, and calls for help to escape from the trap into which the King has lured him. His own adherents disarm him, and he is committed to the Tower.

Before the House of Lords passes judgment on the charge of high treason, brought by the Commons of England against Lord Strafford for introducing arbitrary government, and attempting to subvert the laws, Hollis, whose sincere patriotism does not prevent his remembering that his sister had been the Earl's wife, tells Charles that he alone can prevent the fall of the only pillar which props his tottering house of privilege. Sir Harry Vane has produced his father's record of Strafford's offer in Council to bring troops from Ireland, to force this kingdom to obedience.' The Earl will be sentenced to death if he does not justify himself, as he could easily do, by showing that the acts most censured were done in obedience to the royal orders. In that case the question will be whether king or minister shall fall. The time has come for Charles to show that he is indeed a king, by speaking to Parliament in his servant's defence. This the monarch promises. Then, when Hollis has departed, he signs, at Lady Carlisle's request, a command to her brother, Lord Northumberland, to bring the army to London, and place it under

Strafford's orders. Of this plan he wishes to have the sole credit, and she consents, knowing that to prove the King faithless will take away all that her friend lives for. So she hastens to Strafford, fearing that her heart will beat so that she cannot speak to him, and calling herself unworthy of him because she cannot be satisfied with the thought of his never knowing that it is she who saves him. Deeply is she grieved when he refuses to listen to her plan, boasts that he has nothing to fear, calls her a slight, graceful girl, too tall for a flowering lily, and promises that she shall soon hear him impeach Pym and his fellows.

These managers of the trial are now about to do what one of their own party blames as snatching away the last spar from the drowning man. Vane, too, well as he knows whose single arm rolled back the advancing good of England, and set up in its place the woeful past, protests that he cannot bear the thought of having murdered Strafford. Pym, however, is ready to take the whole responsibility, and Hampden says when entreated to interfere, and reminded how his eyes grew thick with tears as Strafford spoke-'England speaks louder. Who are we that we should play the generous pardoner at her expense, and waive advantages magnanimously? Shame on him who turns to his own mean account the opportunity of serving her with which she trusts him!'

Pym's friends say that they wish some weightier charge had been made out, and that they never thought it could come to this.

He answers, 'But I have made myself familiar with this one thought, and had it before me as I walked, and sat, and slept. I have acted ever as the chosen man that should destroy the traitor. You call these charges petty; but can we come to the real charge? He is safe against that in the tyrant's stronghold. Apostasy and treachery are not crimes. We must bring in this Bill, and thus roll away the clouds of precedent and custom, bidding the great beaconlight God sets in each man's conscience shine upon the guilt of Strafford. And yet my youth and our friendship came back to me at the trial as he looked at me, and for a time I was It is very sad! To-morrow we have points of law to discuss.'

'I knew you would relent,' interposes Vane. 'Hazelrig, you will introduce the Bill for his attainder the next day. Pray for me!'

Before calling thus on King, Lords, and Commons, to decree Strafford's death in their legislative capacity, Pym goes to Charles, whom he finds full of admiration at the Earl's generosity in throwing no blame on the Crown, as well as of delight in the prospect of his escape without needing Lady Carlisle's help. On being shown the Bill of Attainder, and told by its author that it will not be introduced unless there is