d for being so regularly arched that they
looked as if drawn by a pencil, eyes continually beaming with the
witchery of fire, a nose of perfect Grecian outline, a mouth so ruby
red and gracious that it seemed that, as a flower opens but to let
its perfume escape, so it could not open but to give passage to gentle
words, with a neck white and graceful as a swan's, hands of alabaster,
with a form like a goddess's and a foot like a child's, Mary was a
harmony in which the most ardent enthusiast for sculptured form could
have found nothing to reproach.

This was indeed Mary's great and real crime: one single imperfection in
face or figure, and she would not have died upon the scaffold. Besides,
to Elizabeth, who had never seen her, and who consequently could only
judge by hearsay, this beauty was a great cause of uneasiness and of
jealousy, which she could not even disguise, and which showed itself
unceasingly in eager questions. One day when she was chatting with James
Melville about his mission to her court, Mary's offer to be guided
by Elizabeth in her choice of a husband,--a choice which the queen
of England had seemed at first to wish to see fixed on the Earl of
Leicester,--she led the Scotch ambassador into a cabinet, where she
showed him several portraits with labels in her own handwriting: the
first was one of the Earl of Leicester. As this nobleman was precisely
the suitor chosen by Elizabeth, Melville asked the queen to give it him
to show to his mistress; but Elizabeth refused, saying that it was
the only one she had. Melville then replied, smiling, that being in
possession of the original she might well part with the copy; but
Elizabeth would on no account consent. This little discussion ended, she
showed him the portrait of Mary Stuart, which she kissed very tenderly,
expressing to Melville a great wish to see his mistress. "That is very
easy, madam," he replied: "keep your room, on the pretext that you are
indisposed, and set out incognito for Scotland, as King James V set out
for France when he wanted to see Madeleine de Valois, whom he afterwards
married."

"Alas!" replied Elizabeth, "I would like to do so, but it is not so easy
as you think. Nevertheless, tell your queen that I love her tenderly,
and that I wish we could live more in friendship than we have done up to
the present". Then passing to a subject which she seemed to have wanted
to broach for a long time, "Melville," she continued, "tell me frank