or even as lecturer and show-woman on the most popular
subject in England.

"But her Grace surpassed herself in acting the tyrant last January; you
would have sworn her really angry. This was how it fell out. I was in the
anteroom one day, waiting for her Grace, when I thought I heard her call.
So I tapped; I got no clear answer, but I heard her voice within, so I
entered. And there was her Majesty, sitting a little apart in a chair by
herself, with the Secretary--poor rat--white-faced at the table, writing
what she bade him, and looking at her, quick and side-ways, like a child
at a lifted rod; and there was her Grace: she had kicked her stool over,
and one shoe had fallen; and she was striking the arm of her chair as she
spoke, and her rings rapped as loud as a drunken watchman. And her face
was all white, and her eyes glaring"--and Mary began to glare and raise
her voice too--"and she was crying out, 'By God's Son, sir, I will have
them hanged. Tell the----' (but I dare not say what she called my Lord
Sussex, but few would have recognised him from what she said)--'tell him
that I will have my will done. These--' (and she called the rebels a name
I dare not tell you)--'these men have risen against me these two months;
and yet they are not hanged. Hang them in their own villages, that their
children may see what treason brings.' All this while I was standing at
the open door, thinking she had called me; but she was as if she saw
nought but the gallows and hell-fire beyond; and I spoke softly to her,
asking what she wished; and she sprang up and ran at me, and struck
me--yes; again and again across the face with her open hand, rings and
all--and I ran out in tears. Yes," went on Miss Corbet in a moment,
dropping her voice, and pensively looking up at nothing, "yes; you would
have said she was really angry, so quick and natural were her movements
and so loud her voice."

Mr. James' face wrinkled up silently in amusement; and Lady Maxwell
seemed on the point of speaking; but Miss Corbet began again:

"And to see her Grace act the lover. It was a miracle. You would have
said that our Artemis repented of her coldness; if you had not known it
was but play-acting; or let us say perhaps a rehearsal--if you had seen
what I once saw at Nonsuch. It was on a summer evening; and we were all
on the bowling green, and her Grace was within doors, not to be
disturbed. My Lord Leicester was to come, but we thought had not arrived.
Th