"God bless her," said Mrs. Marrett loyally, "she's a woman like ourselves for all her majesty. And she likes the show and the music too, like us all. I declare when I see them all a-going down the water to Greenwich, or to the Tower for a bear-baiting, with the horns blowing and the guns firing and the banners and the barges and the music, I declare sometimes I think that heaven itself can be no better, God forgive me! Ah! but I wish her Grace 'd take a husband; there are many that want her; and then we could laugh at them all. There's so many against her Grace now who'd be for her if she had a son of her own. There's Duke Charles whose picture hangs in her bedroom, they say; and Lord Robert Dudley--there's a handsome spark, my dear, in his gay coat and his feathers and his ruff, and his hand on his hip, and his horse and all. I wish she'd take him and have done with it. And then we'd hear no more of the nasty Spaniards. There's Don de Silva, for all the world like a monkey with his brown face and mincing ways and his grand clothes. I declare when Captain Hawkins came home, just four years ago last Michaelmas, and came up to London with his men, all laughing and rolling along with the people cheering them, I could have kissed the man--to think how he had made the brown men dance and curse and show their white teeth! and to think that the Don had to ask him to dinner, and grin and chatter as if nought had happened." And Mrs. Marrett's good-humoured face broke into mirth at the thought of the Ambassador's impotence and duplicity. Anthony's arrival in London a few days before Christmas removed the one obstacle to Isabel's satisfaction--that he was not there to share it with her. The two went about together most of the day under their father's care, when he was not busy at his book, and saw all that was to be seen. One afternoon as they were just leaving the courtyard of the Tower, which they had been visiting with a special order, a slight reddish-haired man, who came suddenly out of a doorway of the White Tower, stopped a moment irresolutely, and then came towards them, bare-headed and bowing. He had sloping shoulders and a serious-looking mouth, with a reddish beard and moustache, and had an air of strangely mingled submissiveness and capability. His voice too, as he spoke, was at once deferential and decided. "I ask your pardon, Mr. Norris," he said. "Perhaps you do not remember me." "I have seen you before," said the other, puzzled for a moment. "Yes, sir," said the man, "down at Great Keynes; I was in service at the Hall, sir." "Yes, yes," said Mr. Norris, "I remember you perfectly. Lackington, is it not?" The man bowed again. "I left about eight years ago, sir; and by the blessing of God, have gained a little post under the Government. But I wished to tell you, sir, that I have been happily led to change my religion. I was a Papist, sir, you know." Mr. Norris congratulated him. "I thank you, sir," said Lackington.