, for if it do not gall you it
shall wring the withers of this my old husband's cousin!'

The old Lady Rochford, who was always thinking of what had been said two
speeches ago, because she was so slow-witted, raised her gouty hands in
the air and opened her mouth. But the Queen smiled faintly at Cicely.

'When I ask you to mince matters in my little room you shall do it. It
was Lucius the Praetor that went always accompanied by a carping Stoic
to keep him from being puffed up, and it was a good custom.'

'Before Heaven,' Cicely Rochford said in the midst of her curtsey at the
door, 'shall I have the office of such a one as Diogenes who derided
Alexander the Emperor? Then must my old husband live with me in a tub!'

'Pray you,' the Queen said after her through the door, 'look you around
and spy me out a maid to be my tiring-woman and ward my spinsters. For
nowadays I see few maids to choose from.'

When she was gone the old Lady Rochford timorously berated the Queen.
She would have her be more distant with knights' wives and the like. For
it was fitting for a Queen to be feared and deemed awful.

'I had rather be loved and deemed pitiful,' Katharine answered. 'For I
was once such a one--no more--than she or thou, or very little more.
Before the people I bear myself proudly for my lord his high honour. But
I do lead a very cloistered life, and have leisure to reflect upon for
what a little space authority endureth, and how that friendship and true
love between friends are things that bear the weather better.' She did
not say her Latin text, for the old lady had no Latin.

VI

In the underground cell, above the red and gold table that afternoon,
Lascelles wrought at a fair copy of the King's letter to the Pope,
amended as it had been by Udal's hand. The Archbishop had come into the
room reading a book as he came from his prayers, and sate him down in
his chair at the tablehead without glancing at his gentleman.

'Prithee, your Grace,' Lascelles said, 'suffer me to carry this letter
mine own self to the Queen.'

The Archbishop looked up at him; his mournful eyes started wide; he
leaned forward.

'Art thou Lascelles?' he asked.

'Aye, Lascelles I am,' the gentleman answered; 'but I have cut off my
beard.'

The Archbishop was very weak and startled; he fell into an anger.

'Is this a time for vanities?' he said. 'Will you be after the wenches?
You look a foolish boy! I do not like this prank.'

Lascelles p