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Yes, even princes lorious and lofty as they are, proudly as

they stand over their tre subjects! Even to them comes the dark

hour in which all the borrowed and artistically-combined tinsel of their

lives falls from them; a dark hour, in which they treranted to their fellow-men--mercy!

Mercy for those false tales which they have iher endowments of princes, of inherited

wisdom which raises them above the rest of mankind--mercy for their

arbitrariness, their pride, and their insolence--ar, who, until then, had called himself a rich and powerful prince

And this hour came for Elizabeth After twenty years of splendor, of

absolute, unliods,

ca hour in which Elizabeth ceased to be an e s from her Creator!

She suffered much, this poor e upon silken cushions, with a gold-e li, hardly fifty, and she loved life so intensely!

Oh, she would have given half of her empire for a few more years of life

and enjoyment But what cares Death for the wishes of an e and writhing, the earth-worly subh lords of the court, those

grand noblerooms, lackeys, and serfs--where

were they now? Why stood they not around the death-bed of their empress?

Why were they not there, that the reht drive away those terrible reminiscences of the torments

she had inflicted upon others? Where were they, her counts, barons,