A pair of dark eyes, that had hitherto been fixed on some object amidships, were raised in wonder to the laughing speaker, reproachful, as it were, of her levity at such a time; and Mary Hamilton’s beautiful face, paler and more beautiful than ever in the moonlight, seemed to take a deeper shade of sadness as she resumed the occupation in which she had been interrupted with an unconscious sigh. Sitting at the Queen’s feet, she was ready, as usual, at the shortest notice, to fulfil her mistress’s wishes; but the latter remarked, with concern, that her favourite maid-of-honour had been silent for hours, and that the novelties incidental to their situation had failed to rouse her from the abstraction in which, of late, she had been habitually plunged. It grieved the Queen’s kind heart, for, though she loved the others dearly, perhaps she loved Mary Hamilton the best of all; and it was no wonder. Beautiful as she was, with her large solemn eyes and her black hair, framing the oval of a perfect face, pale and serene like an autumn evening, with her tall graceful figure and womanly gestures, there was yet an undefinable charm about Mary Hamilton that seemed independent of all outward advantages; as though she must still have been lovable, had she been old, ugly, and deformed. It is a melancholy, nay, a morbid sentiment which bids us feel in all exceeding beauty something akin to sorrow--and yet, who will deny the uncomfortable fact? Perhaps it arises from the longing after perfection which appertains to our immortality. Perhaps it is but the hopeless consciousness that our ideal can never be attained. At least the feeling exists; and in Mary Hamilton’s beauty, doubtless, the melancholy element predominated. It did not make her the less beloved, we may be sure; and the black-eyed maid-of-honour was worthy of the attachments she kindled wherever she was known. A kinder heart than hers never beat beneath a bodice. Wherever she heard of a sorrow, however trivial the cause, she was there to soothe. Utterly unselfish, she was ever ready to sacrifice her own will, her own amusements, her own advantage, to the lightest wish of another. And although the very sentinels at the palace-gate blessed her for her beauty, as she passed through, she seemed the only person about the Court who was insensible to her own attractions. Gentle, yielding, trusting, and enthusiastic, here was a woman ready prepared and bound, as it were, for the sacrifice. Need we say the victim could not fail to be offered up?