her uterus because of a fibroid tumour. She professed to be frantically sorry because she could no longer bear a son to go into Parliament to fight the battle of the proletariat against the wicked capitalist; but once in a moment of weakness she confessed that what she had really wanted was not a bouncing young politician, but merely a dear little baby to be her own child. Probably some such motive weighed with Mary. People laughed at her because she used to mistake any abdominal swelling, or even the normal diminution of menstruation that occurs with middle age, for a sign of pregnancy[8]; but possibly if she had married Charles instead of Philip, and had lived happily with him as his wife, she would not have given her people occasion to call her “Bloody Mary.” She is the saddest figure in English history. From her earliest infancy she had been taught to look forward to a marriage with the wonderful man who to her mind--and to the world’s--typified the noblest qualities of humanity--courage, bravery, rich and profound wisdom, learning and love of the beautiful in art and music and literature; friend and admirer of Titian and gallant helper of her mother. Her disappointment must have been terrible when she found him snatched from her grasp and saw herself condemned either to a life of old maidenhood or to a loveless marriage with a mean religious fanatic twelve years younger than herself. The mentality which led Mary to persecute the English Protestants contained the same qualities as had led Joan of Arc to her career of unrivalled heroism, and to-day leads an old maid to keep parrots. When an old maid undresses it is said that she puts a cover over the parrot’s cage lest the bird should see her nakedness; that is a phase of the same mentality as Mary’s and Joan’s. Loneliness, sadness, suppressed longing for the unattainable--it is cruel to laugh at an old maid.