sermon "Over Edom have I cast out my shoe." Neat, if he'd understood!'

'I don't understand,' said Una. 'What about the two cousins?'

they

'You are as cruel as a woman,' the lady answered. 'I was not to blame. I told you I gave 'em time to change their minds. On my honour (ay de mi!), she asked no more of 'em at first than to wait a while off that coast the Gascons' Graveyard to hover a little if their ships chanced to pass that way had only one tall ship and a pinnace - only to watch and bring me word of Philip's doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread father's soul, I tell you he had none — none!' She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second.

'Nay, nay. You must not turn from me too! She laid it all fairly before the lads in Brickwall garden between the yews. I told 'em that if Philip sent a fleet (and to make a plantation he could not well send less), their poor little cock-boats could not sink it. They answered that, with submission, the fight would be their own concern. She showed 'em again that there could be only one end to it quick death on the sea, or slow death in Philip's prisons. They asked no more than to embrace death for my sake. Many men have prayed to me for life. I've refused 'em, and slept none the worse after; but when my men,

- ah, it

my tall, fantastical young men beseech me on their knees for leave to die for me, it shakes me shakes me to the marrow of my old bones.'

Her chest sounded like a board as she hit it. 'She showed 'em all. I told 'em that this was no time for open war with Spain. If by miracle inconceivable they prevailed against Philip's fleet, Philip would hold me accountable. For England's sake, to save war, I should e'en be forced (I told 'em so) to give him up their young heads. If they failed, and again by some miracle escaped Philip's hand, and crept back to England with their bare lives, they must lie — oh, I told 'em all! - under my sovereign displeasure. She could not know them, see them, nor hear their names, nor stretch out a finger to save them from the gallows, if Philip chose to ask it. ""Be it the gallows, then," says the elder. (I could have wept but that my face was made for the day.)

"Either way - any way which I know you fear not.

assured dishonour," I cried.

this venture is death,

But it is death with

""Yet our Queen will know in her heart what we have done," says the younger.

666

666

"Sweetheart,” I said. "A Queen has no heart.” "But she is a woman, and a woman would not forget," says the elder. at my feet.

"We will go!"
"We will go!" They knelt

"Nay, dear lads- but here!" I said, and I opened my arms to them and I kissed them.

"Be ruled by me,” I said. "We'll hire some ill

featured old tarry-breeks of an admiral to watch the Graveyard, and you shall come to Court."

""Hire whom you please," says the elder. "We are ruled by you, body and soul"; and the younger, who shook most when I kissed 'em, says between his white lips, "I think you have power to make a god of a man.' ""Come to Court and be sure of it," I says.

"They shook their heads and I knew I knew, that go they would. If I had not kissed them - perhaps I might have prevailed.'

"Then why did you do it?' said Una. 'I don't think you knew really what you wanted done.'

'May it please your Majesty,' the lady bowed her head low, 'this Gloriana whom I have represented for your pleasure was a woman and a Queen. Remember her when you come to your kingdom.'

'But did the cousins go to the Gascons' Graveyard?' said Dan, as Una frowned.

'They went,' said the lady.

'Did they ever come back?' Una began, but — 'Did they stop King Philip's fleet!' Dan interrupted. The lady turned to him eagerly.

D'you think they did right to go?' she asked.

'I don't see what else they could have done,' Dan replied, after thinking it over.

'D'you think she did right to send 'em?' The lady's voice rose a little.

'Well,' said Dan, 'I don't see what else she could have done, either do you? How did they stop King Philip from getting Virginia ?'

'There's the sad part of it. They sailed out that autumn from Rye Royal, and there never came back so much as a single rope-yarn to show what had befallen them. The winds blew, and they were not. Does that make you alter your mind, young Burleigh?'

'I expect they were drowned, then. Anyhow, Philip didn't score, did he?'

'Gloriana wiped out her score with Philip later. But if Philip had won, would you have blamed Gloriana for wasting those lads' lives?'

'Of course not. She was bound to try to stop him.' The lady coughed. 'You have the root of the matter in you. Were I Queen, I'd make you Minister.'

'We don't play that game,' said Una, who felt that she disliked the lady as much as she disliked the noise the high wind made tearing through Willow Shaw.

'Play!' said the lady with a laugh, and threw up her hands affectedly. The sunshine caught the jewels on her many rings and made them flash till Una's eyes dazzled, and she had to rub them. Then she saw Dan on his knees picking up the potatoes they had spilled at the gate.

'There wasn't anybody in the Shaw, after all,' he said. 'Didn't you think you saw some one?'

'I'm most awfully glad there isn't,' said Una. Then they went on with the potato-roast.

THE LOOKING-GLASS

Queen Bess was Harry's daughter!

The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old,

Her petticoat was satin and her stomacher was gold. Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass.

The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass As comely or as kindly or as young as once she was!

The Queen was in her chamber, a-combing of her hair. There came Queen Mary's spirit and it stood behind her chair,

Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may

you pass,

But I will stand behind you

glass.

till you

face the looking

The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass As lovely or unlucky or as lonely as I was!'

The Queen was in her chamber, a-weeping very sore, There came Lord Leicester's spirit and it scratched upon the door.

Singing, 'Backwards and forwards and sideways may you pass