not even at this very moment making me pay a heavy atonement (with
emphasis laying her hand on SOPHY'S shoulder)? Believe me, Sophy, woman
has but to choose between ruling and serving, but the utmost joy of power
is a worthless possession if the mightier joy of being slave to the man
we love be denied us.

SOPHY. A truth, dear lady, which I could least of all have expected to
hear from your lips!

LADY MILFORD. And wherefore, Sophy? Does not woman show, by her
childish mode of swaying the sceptre of power, that she is only fit to go
in leading-strings! Have not my fickle humors--my eager pursuit of wild
dissipation--betrayed to you that I sought in these to stifle the still
wilder throbbings of my heart?

SOPHY (starting back with surprise). This from you, my lady?

LADY MILFORD (continuing with increasing energy). Appease these
throbbings. Give me the man in whom my thoughts are centered--the man I
adore, without whom life were worse than death. Let me but hear from his
lips that the tears of love with which my eyes are bedewed outvie the
gems that sparkle in my hair, and I will throw at the feet of the prince
his heart and his dukedom, and flee to the uttermost parts of the earth
with the man of my love!

SOPHY (looking at her in alarm). Heavens! my lady! control your
emotion----

LADY MILFORD (in surprise). You change color! To what have I given
utterance? Yet, since I have said thus much, let me say still more--let