The morning broke gloomily, when the Queen, attired in deep mourning, and attended only by Lady Hamilton, entered the chapel for early mass. Her lovely face looked paler than usual under the veil of crape which shaded it, and there was an expression of something more than sorrow, of annoyance and apprehension, on its lineaments. Perhaps she was thinking of her brief reign in France, not long enough for a sovereign to discover the many troubles and anxieties that line a crown. Perhaps she was recalling the adoration she had been used to receive from the excitable French people, and contrasting it with the gloomy brows and ominous mutterings she had already encountered amongst her new subjects. Mary had been but a few weeks on the Scottish throne, ere she became aware that even her beauty and her bereavement were not sufficient to cover the _odium_ of her religion in the eyes of these northern zealots, and that Protestantism might esteem it a duty both to God and man to insult a helpless woman because she was a Catholic Queen. As she passed slowly up the aisle with weary step and downcast air, followed by her maid-of-honour, it may be that both the women were longing wearily for that rest which they came here to seek--glad to be relieved, if but for an hour, of the burden which at some future time they should cast down at once and for ever--almost wishing that the time was come, and the journey over, and the resting-place at hand. And now the anthem swells and sinks and fills the echoing aisle; and the crimson light streams through the deep-stained windows on chiselled font and sculptured cross and monumental marble, while the tones of the choristers rise and fall like the song of angels speaking of hope and peace and pardon for the penitent--wailing in their celestial sorrow for the loved that yet are lost for evermore. In that flood of harmony the Queen bathed her wounded spirit, bidding it contemn the reefs and rocks that beset its earthly course as it floated, if but for an instant, towards the eternal shore; and Mary Hamilton, joining in the tide of prayer and praise, forgot her hopes and fears, her tottering happiness and earthly misgivings, while she felt that there was yet in store for her a home of endless welcome, a joy that no uncertainty could poison, a love no falsehood could take away.