But now it mattered not.

Had I known that the blood of kings was in my veins, it would not have wakened one throb of ambition, kindled one ray of joy.

I cared not for my lineage or kindred.
I would not have disturbed the serenity that seemed settling on my mother's departing spirit, by one question relative to her past life, for the wealth of the Indies.
She gave to Mrs.Linwood a manuscript which she had written while I was at school, and which was to have been committed to Peggy's care;--for surely Peggy, the strong, the robust, unwearied Peggy, would survive her, the frail, delicate, and stricken one! She told me this the night before she died, when at her own request I was left alone with her.

I knew it was for the last time, but I had been looking forward steadily to this hour,--looking as I said before, as the iron-bound prisoner to the revolving knife, and like him I was outwardly calm.

I knelt beside her and looked on her shadowy form, her white, transparent skin, her dark, still lustrous, though sunken eyes, till it seemed that her spirit, almost disembodied, mingled mysteriously with mine, in earnest of a divine communion.
"I thank God, my Gabriella," she said, laying her hand blessingly on my bowed head, "that you submit to His holy will, in a spirit of childlike submission.