And the soul said, 'Blessed are they that mourn;' and I rejoiced at the new trial which brought me nearer to Him who chastens those He loves." "But thy banished kin--the valiant, the wise; they who placed thy lord on the throne ?" "Was it no comfort," answered the Queen simply, "to think that in the House of God my prayers for them would be more accepted than in the halls of kings?
Yes, my child, I have known the world's honour, and the world's disgrace, and I have schooled my heart to be calm in both." "Ah, thou art above human strength, Queen and Saint," exclaimed Edith; "and I have heard it said of thee, that as thou art now, thou wert from thine earliest years [115]; ever the sweet, the calm, the holy--ever less on earth than in heaven." Something there was in the Queen's eyes, as she raised them towards Edith at this burst of enthusiasm, that gave for a moment, to a face otherwise so dissimilar, the likeness to her father; something, in that large pupil, of the impenetrable unrevealing depth of a nature close and secret in self-control.

And a more acute observer than Edith might long have been perplexed and haunted with that look, wondering if, indeed, under the divine and spiritual composure, lurked the mystery of human passion.
"My child," said the Queen, with the faintest smile upon her lips, and drawing Edith towards her, "there are moments when all that breathe the breath of life feel, or have felt, alike.

In my vain youth I read, I mused, I pondered, but over worldly lore.

And what men called the sanctity of virtue, was perhaps but the silence of thought.

Now I have put aside those early and childish dreams and shadows, remembering them not, save (here the smile grew more pronounced) to puzzle some poor schoolboy with the knots and riddles of the sharp grammarian [116].