A pretender
Profanes the English throne! The gen'rous Britons
Are cheated by a juggler, [whose whole figure
Is false and painted, heart at well as face!]
If right prevail'd, you now would in the dust
Before me lie, for I'm your rightful monarch!
[Elizabeth _hastily retires_.
MARY. At last, at last,
After whole years of sorrow and abasement,
One moment of victorious revenge!
* * * * *
SCENE FROM LEAH, THE FORSAKEN.
ACT IV. SCENE III.
SCENE.--_Night. The Village Churchyard. Enter Leah slowly, her hair
streaming over her shoulders._
LEAH--[_solus_]-What seek I here? I know not; yet I feel I have a
mission to fulfil. I feel that the cords of my I being are stretched to
their utmost effort. Already seven days! So long! As the dead lights were
placed about the body of Abraham, as the friends sat nightly at his feet
and watched, so have I sat, for seven days, and wept over the corpse of my
love. What have I done? Am I not the child of man? Is not love the right of
all,--like the air, the light? And if I stretched my hands towards it, was
it a crime? When I first saw him, first heard the sound of his voice,
something wound itself around my heart.
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