CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER —THE EXILES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 127, 8 October 1875, Page 7

CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER — THE EXILES.

In a spacious apartment, with oaken wainscot and flooring 1 , a few uncushioned chairs of the same wood, a long table, and casements buried in deep recesses in the wall, looking out on the wide expanse of country beyond, the leafless boughs of the trees covered with hoar frost, for it is mid- winter, two ladies are seated ; one is still in the prime of life, the other is middle-aged. The youngest of these ladies is tall and elegant in form, her complexion is fair, her hair as black as the raven's wing, the arched eyebrows and long silken lashes that veiled the fine dark eyes were of the same hue, the contour of the face was of a delicate oval, the expression sweet and winning. The companion of this lady is robed in the garb of a nun. She has not her charm of personal beauty, but the frank, open countenance is pleasing, her figure is upright as when thirty years since she made the vows that bound her to religion. She is the abbess of ChaiUot, and the other lady is the beautiful and hapless ex-queen of England, Mary Beatrice, of Modena. A "great consolation in her very sorrowful life must hare been her affectionate intercourse with the nuns of Ohaillot; " Is your majesty well assured that your information conies from a correct source ?" asked the abbess, after a pause in their conversation. The calm resignation with which the queen generally bore her great trials had on this occasion given way to the indulgence of a burst of uncontrollable grief. " May we not hope," she continued, " that there may be some mistake in the assertion that your favorite, Florence, is really detained at the court of Mary V Alas, no ; the news of my informant may be too well xelied tipon ; there can be no doubt of that," was the reply. " Our greatest grief arisos from the fact that those most devoted to our interests are, through that devotion, visited with penalties, imprisomnenfc, and death j but when I suffered Florence to leave me to

make a short -visit to England, I certainly had not the faintest idea that she would ever approach the Court, but the missive we have received tells us that not only is she detained there/To all appearances merely as one of the queen's ladies, but that she,' in fact, fools herself a kind of prisoner; whilst immediately after Ashton had sailed from London, with papers of the utmost importance for the king, the whole plot was discovered, it is suspected, through the instrumentality of the humble persons from whom he hired the vessel. These tidings, in fact, have reached us through my friend, Lady Bulkely, whb«e husband writes her that .Ashton's wife has adopted some means to make my poor Fl >rence aware that she is surrounded by dauger ; nay, she must herself be aware that should Mary's suspicions bo excited, there is but one step from her presence, and that may be either to the Tower or the grave."