tto--_Sic nos non nobis_.
Lucy had no eyes for anyone but her ideal knight, and Fulke Greville, in
his gilded armour, with his followers in gorgeous array, had passed by
almost unheeded.

Speeches were made, and songs sung, and then the challengers marched up and
down the yard, and at last proceeded to 'run tilt,' each in his turn,
against an opponent, each running six times. The opponents were numerous,
and the four, before nightfall, were seriously discomfited.

The show was over for that day, and the Queen commanded that the tilt
should be run again on the following morning, which was Whit-Tuesday. After
a great many more speeches and confessions of weariness, the four knights
fell to work with such renewed energy that, we are told, what with
shivering swords and lusty blows, it was as if the Greeks were alive
again, and the Trojan war renewed--ending in the defeat of the Four Foster
Children of Desire, who were, as was only probable, beaten in the unequal
contest.

The Queen was loud in her praise of the 'pleasant sport,' which had
delighted the gentlemen in whose honour it had been all arranged; and she
called up Philip Sidney for especial thanks, and, tapping him on the
shoulder, bid him repair to the banqueting-hall and discourse some sweet
music on his mandoline, and converse with the French Ambassadors. For, she
said, speaking herself in fluent and excellent French,--

'This good Mr Philip Sidney, I would have you to know, has the command of
many foreign tongues, and there are few to match him in Latin and Greek, as
well as those languages spoken in our own time in divers countries.'

'Ah, madam!' Philip said, 'there is one who surpasses not only my poor self
in learning, but surpasses also the finest scholars that the world can
produce. Need I name that one, gentlemen,' he said, with a courtly bow and
kneeling as he kissed the Queen's hand, 'for she it is who has to-day been
pleased to give, even to us, Four Children of Desire--defeated as we
are--the meed of praise, which is, from her, a priceless dower.'

This flattery was precisely what Elizabeth hoped for, and she was well
pleased that it should be offered in the hearing of those ambassadors, who
would, doubtless, repeat it in the ears of the Duke of Anjou.

In reply, one of the soft-spoken Frenchmen said,--

'Mr Sidney's fame has reached our ears, Madam. We know him to be what you
are pleased to call him; nor will we for a moment dispute his assert