Page:The Royal Marriage.pdf/6

Rh might have noted that a shadow had passed over the soft azure of those eyes, and the step, though as light, was less buoyant. A fortnight had been enough to cloud that fair and sunny face. The realities of life were there.

"My grandmother is ill in bed," said the child.

"We will go and see her," replied Sophie, who followed her little guide to a scene of whose misery she had no previous idea. There was but one room in the mud hovel, through whose crumbling walls and roof the rains had penetrated, and the sunbeams now entered with a ﬁtful and unnatural light. A small heap of white embers smouldered on the hearth, but a ray of sunshine falling directly on it, had extinguished the ﬁre, which had never been more than a few withered sticks. A wooden stool, an arm chair, but broken, and a three-legged table, were the only articles of furniture. Bed there was none; and the dying woman had no pillow but straw. Sophie started—so ghastly was the face which met her gaze.

"Mimi said you would come," exclaimed a hollow voice, "I can now die in peace."

The Electress, for she was now the wife of George of Hanover, knelt by the bedside. The ﬂoor was damp, and Mimi’s little feet left their print upon the surface.

"The rich robe will be soiled," muttered the old woman, "but it matters not. Lady, you are paler than when I last saw you. I know the look of trouble too well not to detect it at once. There is that on your brow which mocks at this world’s state; but this is a weary life; cold, hunger, sickness of the body, sickness of the heart, infest it: and the poor is not the only house where affection never comes. I am dying, lady, and around the death-bed is the future. I see no happiness in those deep blue eyes—no rest in the varying colour of that soft cheek. But there is a God in heaven, lady—if there is the trial, there is also the reward—and in that faith I die. Mimi, my beloved,