"I have come from wholly
disinterested sympathy; partly to warn you, partly to find out
whether your love is perchance fixed upon a lady that would render
my warning useless."
"Well, so you see, Rosabella, that I was right, and that your
tenderness was not aimless. Now, then, you want to warn me? I have
yet to learn that I need any warning."
"Nay, brother! For it would certainly be very dangerous and
mischievous for you, if your love should chance not to be in
accordance with the command of the king."
A momentary flush spread over Henry Howard's face, and his brow
darkened.
"With the king's command?" asked he, in astonishment. "I did not
know that Henry the Eighth could control my heart. And, at any rate,
I would never concede him that right. Say quickly, then, sister,
what is it? What means this about the king's command, and what
matrimonial scheme have you women been again contriving? For I well
know that you and my mother have no rest with the thought of seeing
me still unmarried. You want to bestow on me, whether or no, the
happiness of marriage; yet, nevertheless, it appears to me that you
both have sufficiently learned from experience that this happiness
is only imaginary, and that marriage in reality is, at the very
least, the vestibule of hell."
"It is true," laughed the duchess; "the only happy moment of my
married life was when my husband died. For in that I am more
fortunate than my mother, who has her tyrant still living about her.
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