lords, then the Queen's ladies,
the Lady Rochford that slept with her, the Lady Cicely Rochford; the
Queen's tiring-women, leaving a space between them for the Queen and the
Lady Mary to walk in, then four young pages in scarlet and with the
Queen's favours in their caps, and then the guard of the Queen's door,
and four pikemen with torches whose light, falling from behind,
illumined the path for the Queen's steps. The trumpeters blew four
shrill blasts and then four with their fists in the trumpet mouths to
muffle them. The brazen cries wound down the dark corridors, fathoms and
fathoms down, to let men know that the Queen had done her prayers and
was going to her bed. This great state was especially devised by the
King to do honour to the new Queen that he loved better than any he had
had. The purpose of it was to let all men know what she did that she
might be the more imitated.

But the Queen bade them guide her to the Lady Mary's door, and in the
doorway she dismissed them all, save only her women and her door guard
and pikemen who awaited her without, some on stools and some against the
wall, ladies and men alike.

The Lady Mary looked into the Queen's face very close and laughed at her
when they were in the fair room and the light of the candles.

'Now you shall say your litany over again,' she sneered; 'I will sit me
down and listen.' And in her chair at the table, with her face averted,
she dug with little stabs into the covering rug the stiletto with which
she was wont to mend her pens.

Standing by her, her face fully lit by the many candles that were upon
the mantel, the Queen, dressed all in black and with the tail of her
hood falling down behind to her feet, went patiently through the list of
her prayers--that the Lady Mary should be reconciled with her father,
that she should show at first favour to the ambassadors that sued for
her hand for the Duke of Orleans, and afterwards give a glad consent to
her marriage with the Prince Philip, the Emperor's son; and then, having
been reinstated as a princess of the royal house of England, she should
bear herself as such, and no more cry out upon the memory of Katharine
of Aragon that had been put away from the King's side.

The Queen spoke these words with a serious patience and a level voice;
but when she came to the end of them she stretched out her hand and her
voice grew full.

'And oh,' she said, her face being set and earnest in entreaty towards
the