I should not like to trust it to
anybody else. Alexander and Hamilton Rush will have to be the Queen's
guards--how we want Ransom. Charley Linwood is too small. There's
George, though."
"What does that woman look at the queen so for?"
"Wants to see her head come down--which it did soon after."
"Her head come down?"--
"It had come down pretty well then, when the proud, beautiful queen was
exposed to the looks and insults of the rabble. But they wanted to see
it come down on the scaffold."
"What had she been doing, to make them hate her?"
"She had been a queen;--and they had made up their minds that nobody
ought to be queen, or anything else but rabble; so her head must come
off. A great many other heads came off; for the same reason."
"Preston, I don't think the poor would hate that kind of thing so, if
the rich people behaved right."
"How do you think rich people ought to behave?" said Preston gravely,
turning over the engravings.
Daisy's old puzzle came back on her; she was silent.
"Common people always hate the uncommon, Daisy. Now what next?--Ah! here
is what will do. This is beautiful."
"What is it?"
"Portia and Bassanio. He has just got that letter, you know."
"What letter?"
"Why, Antonio's letter. O don't you know the story? Bassanio was
Antonio's friend, and--O dear, it is a long story, Daisy. You must read
it."
"But what is the picture about?"
"This. Bassanio has just this minute been married to Portia,--the
loveliest lady in all the world; that he knew of; and now comes a
letter, just that minute, telling him that his dear friend Antonio is in
great danger of being cut to pieces through the wickedness of a fellow
that he had borrowed money from.
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