to death with the most cruel tortures; and how her broken-hearted
boy-lord, dethroned and hunted, died before reaching twenty,--is a
standing dish of the pathetic. Unfortunately, the story, handed down
to us with much detail, appears to be true. We must not accept it,
however, as an average illustration of life in that age of England.
The five hundred years before the Conquest do not equal, in the bloody
character of their annals, the like period succeeding it. Barbarous
enough the Anglo-Saxons were, but wanton cruelty does not seem to have
been one of their traits. To produce it some access of religious fury
was usually requisite. It was on the church doors that the skins of
their Danish invaders were nailed.

[Illustration: WALTON CHURCH.]

[Illustration: KINGSTON CHURCH.]

Kingston has no more Dunstans. Alexandra would be perfectly safe in
its market-place. The rosy maidens who pervade its streets need not
envy her cheeks, and the saints and archbishops who are to officiate
at her husband's induction as head of the Anglican Church have their
anxieties at present directed to wholly different quarters. They have
foes within and foes without, but none in the palace.

Kingston bids fair to revert, after a sort, to the metropolitan
position it boasted once, but has lost for nine centuries. The capital
is coming to it, and will cover the four remaining miles within
a decade or two at the existing rate of progress. Kingston may be
assigned to the suburbs already. It is much nearer London, in point
of time, than Union Square in New York to the City Hall. A slip of
country not yet endowed with trottoirs and gas-lamps intervenes. Call