rself firmly before him, turning her back upon Elizabeth.

"Now look a-here, Mr. Nottingham," she said, severely, "I'd like to know
what in the world you see that's queer about me or my ways. What's the
matter, anyway? I came here to make a quiet call on that lady," here she
pointed at the Queen with her umbrella, "and instead of anybody bringin'
a chair, or sayin' 'How d'ye do,' the whole raft of ye hev done nothin'
but stare or call me loony. I s'pose you're mad because I've interrupted
your party, but didn't that man there invite me in? Ef you're all so
dreadful particler, I'll jest get out o' here till Mrs. Tudor can see me
private. I'll set outside, ef I can find a chair."

With an air of offended dignity she stalked toward the door, but turned
ere she had gone ten steps and continued, addressing the assembled
company collectively:

"As fer bein' loony, I can tell you this. Ef you was where I come from
in America, they'd say every blessed one of ye was crazy as a hen with
her head off."

"America!" exclaimed the Queen, as a new thought struck her. "America!
Tell me, dame, come you from the New World?"

"That's what it's sometimes called in the geographies," Rebecca stiffly
replied. "I come from Peltonville, New Hampshire, myself. Perhaps I'd
ought to introduce myself. My name's Rebecca Wise, daughter of Wilmot
and Nancy Wise, both deceased."

She concluded her sentence with more of graciousness than she had shown
in the beginning, and the Queen, now fully convinced of the innocent
sincerity of her visitor, showed a countenance of half-amused,
half-eager interest.

"Why, Sir Walter," she cried, "this cometh within your province,
methinks. If that this good woman be an American, you should be best
able to parley with her and learn her will."

A dark-haired, stern-visaged man of middle height, dressed less
extravagantly than his fellows, acknowledged this address by advancing
and bending one knee to the deck. Here was no longer the gay young
courtier who so gallantly spoiled a handsome cloak to save his
sovereign's shoes, but the Raleigh who had fought a hundred battles for
the same mistress and had tasted the bitterness of her jealous cruelty
in reward.

There was in his pose and manner, however, much of that old grace which
had first endeared him to Elizabeth, and even now served to fix her
fickle favor.

"Most fair and gracious Majesty," he said in a low, well-modulated
voice, turning upward a seeming