weeter majesty." Elizabeth frowned slightly, then said:

"What exercises did she take when you were at the Court?"

"Sometimes she hunted, your Majesty, and sometimes she played upon the
virginals."

"Did she play to effect?"

"Reasonably, your noble Majesty."

"You shall hear me play, and then speak truth upon us, for I have known
none with so true a tongue since my father died."

Thereon she called to a lady who waited near in a little room to bring
an instrument; but at that moment Cecil appeared again at the door, and
his face seeming to show anxiety, Elizabeth, with a sigh, beckoned him
to enter.

"Your face, Cecil, is as long as a Lenten collect. What raven croaks in
England on May Day eve?" Cecil knelt before her, and gave into her hand
a paper.

"What record runs here?" she asked querulously. "A prayer of your
faithful Lords and Commons that your Majesty will grant speech with
their chosen deputies to lay before your Majesty a cause they have at
heart."

"Touching of--?" darkly asked the Queen.

"The deputies wait even now--will not your Majesty receive them? They
have come humbly, and will go hence as humbly on the instant, if the
hour is ill chosen."

Immediately Elizabeth's humour changed. A look of passion swept across
her face, but her eyes lighted, and her lips smiled proudly. She avoided
troubles by every means, fought off by subtleties the issues which she
must meet; but when the inevitable hour came none knew so well to meet
it as though it were a dearest friend, no matter what the danger, how
great the stake.

"They are here at my door, these good servants of the State--shall they
be kept dangling?" she said loudly. "Though it were time for prayers and
God's mercy yet should they speak with me, have my counsel, or my hand
upon the sacred parchment of the State. Bring them hither, Cecil. Now
we shall see--Now you shall see, Angele of Rouen, now you shall see how
queens shall have no hearts to call their own, but be head and heart and
soul and body at the will of every churl who thinks he serves the State
and knows the will of Heaven. Stand here at my left hand. Mark the
players and the play."

Kneeling, the deputies presented a resolution from the Lords and
Commons that the Queen should, without more delay, in keeping with her
oft-expressed resolve and the promise of her Council, appoint one who
should succeed to the throne in case of her death "without posterity."
Her faithful people