he controversial sermons, during which the young
lady contrived to abstract her mind pretty completely. If in good
spirits she would construct airy castles for her Archduke; if
dispirited, she yearned with a homesick feeling for Bridgefield and
Mrs. Talbot. There was something in the firm sober wisdom and steady
kindness of that good lady which inspired a sense of confidence, for
which no caresses nor brilliant auguries could compensate.

Weary and cramped she was to the point of having a feverish attack, and
on one slightly delirious night she fretted piteously after "mother,"
and shook off the Queen's hand, entreating that "mother, real mother,"
would come. Mary was much pained, and declared that if the child were
not better the next day she should have a messenger sent to summon Mrs.
Talbot. However, she was better in the morning; and the Queen, who had
been making strong representations of the unhealthiness and other
inconveniences of Tutbury, received a promise that she should change
her abode as soon as Chartley, a house belonging to the young Earl of
Essex, could be prepared for her.

The giving away large alms had always been one of her great
solaces--not that she was often permitted any personal contact with the
poor: only to sit at a window watching them as they flocked into the
court, to be relieved by her servants under supervision from some
officer of her warders, so as to hinder any surreptitious communication
from passing between them. Sometimes, however, the poor would accost
her or her suite as she rode out; and she had a great compassion for
them, deprived, as she said, of the alms of the religious houses, and
flogged or branded if hunger forced them into beggary. On a fine
spring day Sir Ralf Sadler invited the ladies out to a hawking party on
the banks of the Dove, with the little sparrow hawks, whose prey was
specially larks. Pity for the beautiful soaring songster, or for the
young ones that might be starved in their nests, if the parent birds
were killed, had not then been thought of. A gallop on the moors,
though they were strangely dull, gray, and stony, was always the best
remedy for the Queen's ailments; and the party got into the saddle
gaily, and joyously followed the chase, thinking only of the dexterity
and beauty of the flight of pursuer and pursued, instead of the deadly
terror and cruel death to which they condemned the created creature,
the very proverb for joyousness.

It w