cried out--

'Oh no! Oh no!'

He shook her roughly loose.

'An' you do not wed with him how shall I get advancement?' he said. ''A
promised me that when 'a should come to be Chancellor 'a would advance
me.'

He pushed her from him again with his elbow when she came near.

'Y've grown over familiar,' the Queen said, 'with being too much near
me. Y'are grown over familiar. For seven days you shall no longer keep
my door.'

Margot Poins raised her arms over her head, then she leant against a
window-pane and sobbed into the crook of her elbow. The boy's slender
face was convulsed with rage; his blue eyes started from his head; his
callow hair was crushed up.

'Shall a man----' he began to protest.

'I say nothing against that you did beat this Magister,' the Queen said.
'Such passions cannot be controlled, and I pass it by.'

'But will ye not make this man to wed with my sister?' the boy said
harshly.

'I cannot. He hath a wedded wife!'

He dropped his hands to his side.

'Alack; then my father's house is down,' he cried out.

'Gentleman Guard,' Katharine said, 'get you for seven days away from my
door. I will have another sentry whilst you bethink you of a worthier
way to advancement.'

He gazed at her stupidly.

'You will not make this wedding?' he asked.

'Gentleman Guard,' Katharine said, 'you have your answer. Get you gone.'

A sudden rage came into his eyes; he swallowed in his throat and made a
gesture of despair with his hand. The Queen turned back into her room
and busied herself with her task, which was the writing into a little
vellum book of seven prayers to the Virgin that the Lady Elizabeth,
Queen Anne Boleyn's daughter, a child then in London, was to turn each
one into seven languages, written fair in the volume as a gift, against
Christmas, for the King.

'I would not have that boy to guard my door,' the Lady Cicely said to
the Queen.

'Why, 'tis a good boy,' Katharine answered; 'and his sister loves me
very well.'

'Get your Highness another,' the Lady Cicely persisted. 'I do not like
his looks.'

The Queen gazed up from her writing to where the dark girl, her figure
raked very much back in her stiff bodice, played daintily with the
tassels of the curtain next the window.

'My Lady,' Katharine said, 'my Highness must get me a new maid in place
of Margot Poins, that shall away into a nunnery. Is not that grief
enough for poor Margot? Shall she think in truth that she has undon