from her mind: impossible to foresee what were the scenes through which it might lead her. She heard a great deal of the evil state of public affairs--the decadence of England, the advance of democracy, the approaching ruin in which everything that was great and noble must soon be engulfed; and Lady Jane took it all seriously, and felt it very possible that her fate might be that of a virgin martyr to the cruel forces of revolution. For one time of her life her favourite literature was the memoirs of those great and noble ladies, full of charity and romance, who cast a pathetic glory upon the end of the old _régime_ in France, and died for crimes of which they were no way guilty, paying the long arrears of oppression which they had done all they could to modify. Jane took, as was natural, the political jeremiads of her father and his friends with the matter-of-fact faith of youth, and she did not think that even the guillotine was impossible. If it came to her lot--as, according to all she heard, seemed likely--to maintain the cause of nobility to the last, she was ready to walk to the scaffold like Marie Antoinette, holding her head high, and smiling upon her assassins; or if it were possible to save the country by another kind of self-devotion, she was prepared, though with trembling, to inspire a nation or lead an army. These were the kind of dreams she entertained at fifteen, which is the time when a girl is most alive to the claims of patriotism, and can feel it possible that she too may be a heroine. Older, she began to be less certain. Facts came in and confused fancy. She saw no indications such as those which her books said had been seen in France; everything was very peaceable, everybody very respectful wherever she went. The common people looked at her admiringly when by chance she drove with her mamma through the crowded streets. They seemed all quite willing to acknowledge her position. She was greeted with smiles instead of groans, and heroism seemed unnecessary.