from its scabbard, and glittered in the air; and the dusty banners in
the hall waved, as to a mighty blast, when, amidst the rattle of
armour, burst forth the universal cry, "Long live Edward IV.! Long
live the king!"

The sweet countess, even amidst the excitement, kept her eyes
anxiously fixed on Warwick, whose countenance, however shaded by the
black plumes of his casque, though the visor was raised, revealed
nothing of his mind. Her daughters were more powerfully affected; for
Isabel's intellect was not so blinded by her ambition but that the
kingliness of Edward forced itself upon her with a might and solemn
weight, which crushed, for the moment, her aspiring hopes.

Was this the man unfit to reign? This the man voluntarily to resign a
crown? This the man whom George of Clarence, without fratricide,
could succeed? No!--there spoke the soul of the First and the Third
Edward! There shook the mane and there glowed the eye of the
indomitable lion of the august Plantagenets! And the same conviction,
rousing softer and holier sorrow, sat on the heart of Anne; she saw,
as for the first time, clearly before her the awful foe with whom her
ill-omened and beloved prince had to struggle for his throne. In
contrast beside that form, in the prime of manly youth--a giant in its
strength, a god in its beauty--rose the delicate shape of the
melancholy boy who, afar in exile, coupled in his dreams, the sceptre
and the bride! By one of those mysteries which magnetism seeks to
explain, in the strong intensity of her emotions, in the tremor of her
shaken nerves, fear seemed to grow prophetic. A stream as of blood
rose up from the dizzy floors. The image of her young prince, bound
and friendless, stood before the throne of that warrior-king. In the
waving glitter of the countless swords raised on high, she saw the