Pretty Milicent left us to seek for Mistress Bess, whom she had charge of that day; and now our eyes were so intent on watching the spectacle before us that even Polly for a while was silent. The queen did sit at table with a store of noblemen waiting on her; and a more goodly sight and a rarer one is not to be seen than a store of men famed for so much bravery and wit and arts of state, that none have been found to surpass them in any age, who be so loyal to a queen and so reverent to a woman as these to this lady, who doth wear the crown of so great a kingdom, so that all the world doth hold it in respect, and her hand sought by so many great princes. But all this time I could not perceive that she so much as once did look toward my Lady Surrey, or spoke one single word to her or to my Lady Lumley, or little Bess, and took very scanty notice also of my Lady Berkeley, his grace's sister, who was a lady of so great and haughty a stomach, and of speech so eloquent and ready, that I have heard the queen did say, that albeit Lady Berkeley bent her knee when she made obeisance to her, she could very well see she bent not her will to love or serve her, and that she liked not such as have a man's heart in a woman's body. 'Tis said that parity breedeth not affection, or affinity respect, of which saying this opinion of the queen's should seem a notable example. But to see my Lady Surrey so treated in her own husband's father's house worked in me such effects of choler, mingled with sadness, that I could scarce restrain my tears. Methought there was a greater nobleness and a more true queenly greatness in her meek and withal dignified endurance of these slights who was the subject, than in the sovereign who did so insult one who least of all did deserve it. What the queen did, others took pattern from; and neither my Lord Burleigh, nor my Lord Leicester, or Sir Christopher Hatton, or young Lord Essex (albeit my lord's own friend ), or little Sir John Harrington, her majesty's godson, did so much as speak one civil word or show her the least attention; but she did bear herself with so much sweetness, and, though I knew her heart was full almost to bursting, kept up so brave an appearance that none should see it except such as had their own hearts wounded through hers, that some were present that day who since have told me that, for promise of future distinction and true nobility of aspect and behavior, they had not in their whole lives known one to be compared with the young Countess of Surrey.