stop—she’s dead; if for a perfect man, you’re a fool. Elijahs are no longer translated without being prepared for the undertaker. Yet methinks that if one could forget other folks’ mistakes as easily as one’s own, there would be less scandal.”

A. M.

He turned to Catharine Parr.

[Pg 57]

[Pg 57]

“One thing has always puzzled me. Why is it that women prefer to be old men’s darlings, that you enjoy being clouds in the sunset’s glow rather than in the noontide glory?”

“The setting sun always gives a golden lining to the clouds it embraces, but to drop the figurative—we are soaring rather high—and come down to earth, women marry old men so that they may soon become widows.”

Henry nervously tried to adjust an imaginary crown that weighed heavily on his head.

“Seymour plucked the weeds from the garden of your widowed life before the first blade of grass had pushed up from a newly-made grave. O Inconstancy! O Woman! Of two things, one. Orpheus went to Hell to find his wife. He failed to win her from her refuge in the shades because he looked back to discern her features. Had Euridice retraced the path from Hell without bringing with her surcease from domestic woe, Orpheus would have wished her back down that familiar track. I wish he would pay us another visit. I’d loan him five of mine.”

“Which wife would you retain?” asked Catharine Howard.

“Catharine,” answered Henry, diplomatically.

All three who bore that name beamed with gratification.

“Catharine is always at Parr,” continued the king. His fondness for punning nearly proved his undoing.

[Pg 58]

[Pg 58]

“I’m not below Parr,” angrily exclaimed Catharine of Arragon. “I come before her.”

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