Page:"The Mummy" Volume 3.djvu/52

 "They want employment," said he one day to the Queen, after reading a dispatch containing an account of one of the most vexatious of these tumults; "you must build bridges and cut canals to amuse them."

The active mind of Elvira caught eagerly at the idea, and she vainly fancied her name would be handed down to posterity as one of the greatest of Queens, who, though in the bloom of youth and pride of beauty, did not hesitate to sacrifice herself for the good of her people, and to devote that time to their welfare and the improvement of her kingdom, which others of her age and rank wasted in mere amusements.

Delighted with the thought, Elvira did not delay a moment before she prepared to put it in practice; and she was found for several days together constantly surrounded by her counsellors, and seated at a table absolutely loaded with papers, which she was busily employed in inspecting and arranging.

Plans for the erection of public buildings, for hospitals, bridges, museums, and churches, schemes for new manufactories, hints for new