Lady Hermione, as Anne Boleyn, wore a robe of plain black that showed to full perfection the outline of her graceful figure. She was represented as kneeling, praying in her cell alone. Her face was a triumph of art; the color, the brightness, the light, the happiness had died from out it; the eyes were filled with unutterable woe, the white face with anguish deeper and stronger than death. When he saw how faithfully Lady Hermione rendered the picture, Sir Ronald repented of having asked her to undertake it. He went to meet her as she came off the stage. “Smile at me,” he said. “Was I mad, Hermione, to ask you to look like that sorrowful queen? Smile at me, that I may forget it, or it will haunt me all night.” She smiled, but her lips quivered. How little he dreamed the time was to come when he would see the face he loved in sadder guise than that of the murdered queen. “My king, when I find him,” she said, laughingly, “will not slay me.” “Nor shall my queen die while I live,” he replied; and then Lady Hermione hastened away. She could not listen to love words, even from him, just then. Then came a very beautiful tableau of Antony and Cleopatra, followed by some taken from scenes in Lord Lytton’s novels. Lady Hermione bore her part in all, but her heart and soul trembled with the passion of anguish and sorrow into which she had thrown herself so as to fully represent the murdered queen. “If we succeed to-morrow night as well as we have done at rehearsal,” said Mr. Eyrle, “the _fête_ at Leeholme will be long remembered.” Yet the picture that haunted him was the bright-faced, golden-haired girl, clasping rich flowers to her breast, and called “Sunshine.” CHAPTER XII. LADY HERMIONE’S BIRTHDAY. It seemed as though the sun loved her, for it had never shone so bright or so warm as when it peeped into her chamber to wake my lady on her birthday. The flowers loved her, for they bloomed fresher, sweeter, more fragrantly that morning than they had ever done before. Surely the sweet songbirds knew it, for the music that rose through the clear, sweet summer air was never so jubilant and clear. The sunshine and the song of the birds awoke her, and her maid was already standing there, her arms filled with fragrant bouquets, roses with dewdrops gleaming on them, rich crimson leaves, lilies, whose white cups were moist and fair; but the loveliest bouquet there had been sent by Sir Ronald. Talk of a floral love letter; every flower had its story. If they could but have raised their beautiful heads and told her how he loved her, this story had never been written. Then when she was alone in the midst of her flowers and saw the costly gifts spread out on every side, her heart swelled with happiness. She raised her sweet eyes to the smiling heavens. “If you were to ask a gift from there,” she said, “I know what it would be--it would be that my love might love me.”