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20 already betrothed, and would soon be united to the monarch of England.

Rosamond pressed her babe to her breast: in mute agony when the news reached her. "Come, my Richard," she exclaimed, "come to the heart thy father's falsehoods broken!—sleep on, my boy, though thy mother sleeps no more;—slumber, my little treasure; thou art all that is left me now—the lovely relict of faded bliss, the living and beauteous pledge of a faith that is forgotten now

At this time she received the following note from Henry.

'Stern necessity may rule the ban—But not the heart. I was never more thine own than now. Do not hate me, but believe in the unquenched love of him whom fate has for awhile taken from thee.

"The sinking wretch," says the proverb; "catcheth at a straw;" so does the dropping heart sustain itself on the most slender hope.—There was comfort even in this scroll, and Rosamond washed it with tears of joy.

With her two babes Rosamond now passed her hours, declining any further interview with her father; but Henry at length forced himself into her presence.