"I will move him thereunto," my lady said. "But he who had formerly no equal in the queen's favor, and to whom she doth partly owe her crown, is now in his sickness and old age of so little account in her eyes, that trifling favors are often denied him to whom she would once have said: 'Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it unto thee.' But what my poor endeavors can effect through him or others shall not be lacking in this thy need. But I am not in that condition I was once like to have enjoyed." Then with her eyes cast on the ground she seemed for to doubt if she should speak plainly, or still shut up her grief in silence. As I sat painfully expecting her next words, the door opened, and two ladies were announced, which she whispered in mine ear she would fain not have admitted at that time, but that Lord Arundel's desire did oblige her to entertain them. One was Mistress Bellamy, and the other her daughter, Mistress Frances, a young gentlewoman of great beauty and very lively parts, which I had once before seen at Lady Ingoldsby's house. She was her parents' sole daughter, and so idolized by them that they seemed to live only to minister to her fancies. Lord Arundel was much bounden to this family by ancient ties of friendship, which made him urgent with his granddaughter that she should admit them to her privacy. I admired in this instance how suddenly those which have been used to exercise such self-command as high breeding doth teach can school their exterior to seem at ease, and even of good cheer, when most ill at ease interiorly, and with hearts very heavy. Lady Surrey greeted these visitors with as much courtesy, and listened to their discourse with as much civility and smiles when called for, as if no burthensome thoughts did then oppress her. Many and various themes were touched upon in the random talk which ensued. First, that wonted one of the queen's marriage, which some opined should verily now take place with Monsieur d'Alençon; for that since his stealthy visits to England, she did wear in her bosom a brooch of jewels in a frog's shape. "Ay," quoth Mistress Frances, "that stolen visit which awoke the ire of the poor soul Stubbs, who styled it 'an unmanlike, unprincelike, French kind of wooing,' and endeth his book of 'The Gaping Gulph' in a loyal rage: 'Here is, therefore, an imp of the crown of France, to marry the crowned nymph of England,'--a nymph indeed well stricken in years. My brother was standing by when Stubbs' hand was cut off; for nothing else would content that sweet royal nymph, albeit the lawyers stoutly contended the statute under which he suffered to be null and void. As soon as his right hand is off, the man takes his hat off with the left, and cries 'God bless the queen!'" "Here is a wonder," I exclaimed; "I pray you, what is the art this queen doth possess by which she holdeth the hearts of her subjects in so great thrall, albeit so cruel to them which do offend her?"