rbid your Majesty to--this and
that,' I am sure he is working only for his cursed house of Lorraine."

"Oh, how well you mimicked him!" cried the queen. "But why don't you
make the Guises inform you of what is going on, so that when you attain
your grand majority you may know how to reign yourself? I am your wife,
and your honor is mine. Trust me! we will reign together, my darling;
but it won't be a bed of roses for us until the day comes when we have
our own wills. There is nothing so difficult for a king as to reign. Am
I a queen, for example? Don't you know that your mother returns me evil
for all the good my uncles do to raise the splendor of your throne? Hey!
what difference between them! My uncles are great princes, nephews of
Charlemagne, filled with ardor and ready to die for you; whereas this
daughter of a doctor or a shopkeeper, queen of France by accident,
scolds like a burgher-woman who can't manage her own household. She is
discontented because she can't set every one by the ears; and then she
looks at me with a sour, pale face, and says from her pinched lips: 'My
daughter, you are a queen; I am only the second woman in the kingdom'
(she is really furious, you know, my darling), 'but if I were in
your place I should not wear crimson velvet while all the court is in
mourning; neither should I appear in public with my own hair and no
jewels, because what is not becoming in a simple lady is still less
becoming in a queen. Also I should not dance myself, I should content
myself with seeing others dance.'--that is what she says to me--"

"Heavens!" cried the king, "I think I hear her coming. If she were to
know--"

"Oh, how you tremble before her. She worries you. Only say so, and
we will send her away. Faith, she's Florentine and we can't help her
tricking you, but when it comes to worrying--"

"For Heaven's sake, Mary, hold your tongue!" said Francois, frightened
and also pleased; "I don't want you to lose her good-will."

"Don't be afraid that she will ever break with _me_, who will some day
wear the three noblest crowns in the world, my dearest little king,"
cried Mary Stuart. "Though she hates me for a thousand reasons she is
always caressing me in the hope of turning me against my uncles."

"Hates you!"

"Yes, my angel; and if I had not proofs of that feeling such as women
only understand, for they alone know its malignity, I would forgive her
perpetual opposition to our dear love, my darling. Is i