e Mary and her friends were
taking supper on the night of Rizzio's murder.

When Mr. George and the boys reached the top of the stairs, they entered
a large room, which, they were told by an attendant who was there to
receive them, was Mary's audience chamber. This was the room situated
back of the bedroom. The room itself, and every thing which it
contained, wore a very antique and venerable appearance. The furniture
was dilapidated, and the coverings of it were worn and moth-eaten. Very
ancient-looking pictures were hanging on the walls. There was a large
fireplace, with an immense movable iron grate in it. The grate was
almost entirely worn out. The attendant who showed these rooms said that
it was the oldest grate in Scotland. Still, it was not so old as the
time of Mary, for it was brought into Scotland, the attendant said, by
Charles II., who was Mary's great grandson.

There was a window in a very deep recess in this room. It looked out
upon a green park, on the side of the palace. A very ancient-looking
table stood in this recess, which, the attendant said, was brought by
Mary from France. The ceiling was carved and ornamented in a very
curious manner.

[Illustration: QUEEN MARY'S BEDROOM.]

"And which is the door," said Waldron to the attendant, "where
Darnley and his men came in, to murder Rizzio?"

"That is in the next room," said the attendant. So saying, he pointed to
a door, and Mr. George and the boys, and also two or three other
visitors whom they had found in the room when they came in, went forward
and entered the room.

"This, gentlemen and ladies," said the attendant, as they went in, "was
Queen Mary's bed chamber. The door where we are coming in was the main
or principal entrance to it. This is the bed and bedstead, just as they
were left when Queen Mary vacated the apartment. That door,"--pointing
to a corner of the room diagonally opposite to where the company had
entered,--"leads to the little boudoir[G] where Rizzio was killed, and
that opening in the wall by the side of it, under the tapestry, is the
place where Darnley and the other assassins came up by the private
stair."

[G] A boudoir is a small private apartment, fitted up for a lady, where
she receives her intimate and confidential friends.

A view of the room, and of the various objects which the attendant
showing them thus pointed out to the company, may be seen in the
engraving on the opposite page.

The bedstead is seen on