'Who is talking of going to death on this joyful occasion?' exclaimed Lord Guildford Dudley, entering the room after a hasty knock at the door. 'For shame, Jane, to croak in that way at the very moment of your elevation to the first place in the land.' Lady Jane flushed a little at the reproof, but instantly smiled with her usual sweetness, then a look of admiration came into her eyes as they fell upon her husband. He was magnificently attired in white cloth of gold, and wore a collar of diamonds, and his handsome face and manly figure, with the indefinable air of chivalry which characterized both him and his father, made him appear to us to look truly regal. His eyes swept appraisingly over his young wife's beauty and her gorgeous dress, then, with a little bow and a whispered compliment, he offered his arm and took her downstairs into the great hall thronged with highborn gentlemen and ladies. Mistress Ellen and I were perforce separated from Lady Jane, as our place was taken by great Court ladies, but when the cavalcade, of which Lord Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane were the centre started for London, we formed part of the vast following of servants and dependants. So they took my precious mistress in great state, first of all to Northumberland House in the Strand, the residence of her father-in-law, where she received the homage of many of her chief subjects, and afterwards, with her husband and the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, and other magnates, partook of a great State banquet, the grandeur of which seemed to me truly amazing and like unto a fairy tale. In the midst of it all, having been overlooked and being bewildered and afraid, Mistress Ellen and I would perchance actually have suffered hunger if Sir Hubert Blair and Sir William Wood, who were among the Duke of Northumberland's following, had not found us out and got a place for us among some fine Court ladies, with whom, to my joy, was Lady Caroline Wood. 'This is a great day,' she said, 'Mistress Margaret, for England and for her,' and she looked across the table to Lady Jane's pale though beautiful face. 'Yes, indeed,' I rejoined, beginning my repast with all haste, for many of those present were finishing, and the claims of hunger made themselves felt. 'It was one to which we were looking forward when you visited our castle,' she went on, 'and one for which that visit prepared you.'