CHAPTER XXX.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 147, 25 February 1876, Page 6

CHAPTER XXX.

ALONE WITH EECOBDS OF OTHLE DATS. Florence, with the other ladies of the court, wondered much what steps the Princess Anne would take (of course I need not tell you she said nothing of what she knew respecting the queen's occupation on the previous night). The princess did her duty ; she was ill and confined to a couch ; nevertheless, she sent a message to her sister, entreating her to allow her the happiness of waiting on her; she would notwithstanding the condition she was in, run any hazard. The message was delivered to her Majesty, and the messenger sent back with word that " the kin<* would send an answer next day." D No kind sisterly message was returned; so no reconciliation could have been desired. Have we not seen all along that Mary's heart was almost dead to human feeling except for her husband ? And even to him she left a letter of rebuke. It Happened the next day that Florence was with two other ladies in the queen's bed-chamber ; the queen was sinking fast into unconsciousness, when Lady Fitzharding, who undertook to express to her the concern of the Princess Anne, forced herself into the queen's bedchamber ; the dying queen gasped out one word " Thanks." That single word was, indeed, all she was able to utter. At length a terrible erysipelas spread itself over the queen's face and a frightful carbuncle settled immediately over the heart. The king was in desp.ur, he ordered his camp bed to be placed in the c amber of his dying consort, and remained with her night and day. She received the communication that she was dying with calmness eaid, "that she had wrote her mind on many things to the kin<*," and spoke of the escritoire which he would find in her closet; and avoided giving herself or her husband the tenderness a final parting mi^ht have caused to them both. This idea is, however, much at variance with the rebuking letter she wrote to him a few nights since in her closot.

After receiving the Sacrament, she composed herself solemnly to die. She slumbered some time, but said her soul was not refreshed by it, and that nothing did her good but prayer. Once or twice she tried to speak to the king, but could not go through with it. For some hours she Jay silent, thea when she spoke she wandered very

wildly, and her hallucinations led those who were around her to believe that there was something still upon her mind. " I have something to tell the Archbishop ; leave me alone with him," said the queen, and the room being immediately cleared, Tennison awaited in breathless impatience, the expected communication. He afterwards said that the queen's mind was wandering, " she had fancied Dr. Radcliffe. her Jacobite physician, had put a Popish nurse- upon her, and that she was lurking behind a screen." One who lived in the time of the queen, on speaking of her last moments uses these words : '"But whether hhe had any scruples relating to her father, and they made part of her discourse with Tennisou, and that arch-divine took pon his own soul the pressure which, in those weak unguarded moments might weigh upon hers, must now remain a secret until the last day." At that most solemn hour between night and morning, the spirit of the queen went forth, without one word of reconciliation or remorse with regard to her injured father, either to asking his foigiveness or expressing sorrow for her conduct. Father l.awson was yet lingering in the vicinity of the palace when the queen's death took place. There were others, besides I'lorence and her handmaiden, secretly of the proscribed faith, and by one of these, the tidings was conveyed to Jame^, who, though he ' i would not put himself in mourning for her death, shut himself up in , his apartments and refused all visits. His horror was great on finding ! that ouc he had loved so dearly had expired without sending him the ! blithest expression of sorrow at the misery she had been the means of c ius ng him. To the great honor of that primate, Dr. Ken, who had been Mary's chaplain in Holland, we may add that he wrote indignantly to l'onnison respecting his conduct at the queen's death-bed, charging him with not acting up to his position as primate, in failing "to call i 'vi the queen to repent on her death-bed of her sins towards her 1 lather," reminding him in very strong language of the horror Tennison had expressed to him of some circumiiance'i in the queen' s conduct at the time of the revolution, affirming that they would compromise her salvation without individual and complete repentance. Three time- had the king swooned when word was brought him t ':at the queen wis no more. He insisted on remaining at Kensington, and as :io one daivd intrude on his grief, Florence was at a loss how 1 to convey to him the letter of the queen ; chance, however, threw her in bis way. The queen's fir cm">l In"! taken place, and she was beginning s. i lously to think 01 .. missing herself to the Princess Acne, when wandering chv.n one o f the galleries of the palace, she met the king .idvai cinq towards her. To retreat was impossible ; he would have pa*- • Icr by, for his head was bent .jwnwards, and he seemed lost in tluug i Her step, however, aroused him, and ho seemed about to pass on, when, as if a sudden idea struck him, he paused. " I will speak ou to the Princess Anne," he said, and was walking on, when summoning courage by the thoughtfulness he had expressed, she knelt down, and gracefully presented to him the dead queen's letter. A flush, akin to anger it might be, passed like a momentary shadow across his countenance ; and iv somewhat harsh tones he exclaimed, " You may go." " You may go," he repeated ; " go from Lere ; go where you will, with your maid ; read, and go quickly." Her eyes fell on the few lines the d\ ing queen had written, and w'lich, passing on without further word or comment, the king left in her hand. They ran thus :—: — In remembrance of my maid of honor, Florence O'Neill, having saved my life during the fire at Whitehall, and also of her submission to our will respecting the overtures of marriage from the Count Von Arnhcim, I beg that you will allow her to leave the palace, with her maid, whenever she pleases to go, wheresoever she shall see fit ; and that she may have the fu'l and entire management of her late uncle's property, as well as of the Irish estates inherited from her aunt, Catherine O'Keill. Marie R. Florence was alone in the gallery, and for two or three minutes after reading the paper, she remained m the position in which William of Orange had left her. Joy is near akin to grief in its manifestations, and her tears fell abundantly over the paper as she proceeded to hey own chamber, her mind busily weaving a thousand delightf id images by the way. When she reached her room, she immediately summoned Grace. When that imperturbable handmaiden made her appearance, she was seated with that small piece of paper open on the table, her hands clasped, and an expression of joy on her countenance. " Grace," she st-icl, "I am going to Franco. Will you accompany me thither? " "To France, madam!" said the astonished woman, and her eyes fell upon the open letter of the queen. " I have the permission of the king. A voice from the grave, | which he dared not refuse, has spoken to him. You may read if you wish ; " and with a something cf reverence, she put the dead queen's letter in her attendant's hand. " You must make your election, Graijfc^ and make it quickly." "It is already made, madam," said Grace. " I love the queon better just now than ever I loved her in her lifetime. When shall we leave London ?"

"Pack up my clothes and books at] 'once, Grace. Let us <*o as speedily a& possible."

Then Florence withdrew to her private apartment, and you may bo quito sure for some little time the felt like one in a, dream, dazed, bewildered. Should she go btraight to St. Gormains? Oh, no ! She s-hould act upon a hint the Queen, Mary Beatrice, had given her. S c should seek out King Louis, and beg him to redeem his word ; because you will please to remember, that when she met the king, at

Marly, more than four years since, he had told her he would "rant any boon she at any time wished to ask of him. I shall not say what boon she meant to ask ; but her thoughts must be thus construed into words. " I shall go to Paris, and then inquire where the King holds his court. If I can get speech of Madame do Maintenon I will, because the king will refuse her no favor she asks of him, though he has already passed his word to me to grant whatever boon 1 solicit. I shall then go to St. Germain*. How surprised they will all be to sec me again ; and he, to whom I have be. n so long betrothed, what will lie say when I give him the message I am sure to take him from King Louis ?" Do not blame her, too, that when her soliloquy was ended, her tears fell to the memory of Queen Mary. How little did she think that ( he queen, on thut morning her hand had traced those lines, was thinking how she should at least remedy one wrong. S'.ic had decided on speaking to her husband, as it were, from the grave. Thus she secured to Florence her property, as well as her freedom. Probably when she begged her so earnestly to give the king the paper the dny after her death, the thought may have occurred to her that permission would , be refused if time were allowed to pass over, so as for the wound occasioned by her loss to heal up before the request was made. There was no small surprise evinced by the ladies of the court at the departure of Florence; but with persons of greater important e, even as with Mary herself, she speedily passed out of the minds o f those amongst whom she had moved. Half fearing to put herself in the way of the king, and yet not liking to leave the palace without craving an audience, she begged one of the ladies in attendance on the Princess Anne to nsk if she might have an interview with him. The king's boorish and uncouth message was worthy of himself — " Tell her I do not want to see her."