Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/703

1868.] self with were fireside projects of what he could do for them in the futurefuture. [sic] Whether it was good for the world to grow more radical or more conservative—whether the lines of demarcation between class and class ought or ought not to be maintained, were irrelevant questions that he had long ago ceased to think of. The only democratic possibility that concerned himself (possibility over which his kind heart loved in silence to brood) was that the feet of Katharine Lawrence's children should one day tread the old paths of the Dene—the voices of Katharine's children call the old house home! All very well for lovers, in the hey-day of courtship, to talk about two hundred a year and Ashcot farm being riches. A time might come when Kate, and Steven, too, would be glad enough to find that other people had had a little more sense, a little less sentiment than themselves!

So prophesied the Squire. Meanwhile the lovers held stoutly to their own misguided opinions; and at last, when the world was green again, when hedgerow and orchard were hung in bridal white, were married.

ALSE and fickle, or fair and sweet,
 * I care not for the rest;

The lover that knelt last night at my feet
 * Was the bravest and the best!

They may perish all, for their power has waned,
 * And their glory waxèd dim;

They were well enough while they lived and reigned.
 * But never was one like him!

And never one from the past would I bring
 * Of that old forgotten line—

''The King is dead! long live the King!''"
 * Said the Lady Jacqueline.

In the old, old days, when life was glad,
 * And the world upon me smiled,

A pretty, dainty lover I had.
 * Whom I loved with the heart of a child.

When the vanished sun of yesterday
 * Turns back from the shadows dim,

It may bring the love he had for me,
 * And the love I had for him!

But since to-day has a better thing
 * To give, I'll ne'er repine:

''The King is dead! long live the King!''" Said the Lady Jacqueline.

Once, caught by the sheen of stars and lace,
 * I bowed, for a single day.