Madge was not strong enough to dance, but she stole away to gather white and blue violets, and made a fair garland to set on my head, to my lord's great content, and would have me unloose my hair on my shoulders, which fell nearly to my feet, and waved in the wind in a wild fashion; which he said was beseeming for a bold outlaw's bride, and what he had seen in the Maid Marian, who had played in the pageant at Nonsuch. Mrs. Fawcett misdoubted that this sport of ours should be approved by Mr. Charke, who calls all stage-playing Satan's recreations, and a sure road unto hell; and that we shall hear on it in his next preachment; for he has held forth to her at length on that same point, and upbraided her for that she did suffer such foolish and profane pastimes to be carried on in his grace's house. Ah me! I see no harm in it; and if, when my lord visits me, I play not with him as he chooses, 'tis not a thing to be expected that he will come only to sing psalms or play chess, which Mr. Charke holds to be the only game it befits Christians to entertain themselves with. 'Tis hard to know what is right and wrong when persons be of such different minds, and no ghostly adviser to be had, such as I was used to at my grandmother's house. "All, Mistress Constance! when I last wrote unto you I said troubles was the word in every one's mouth, and ere I had finished this letter--which I was then writing, and have kept by me ever since--what, think you, has befallen us? 'Tis anent the marriage of his grace with the Queen of Scots; which I now do wish it had pleased God none had ever thought of. Some weeks since my lord had told me, with great glee, that the Spanish ambassador was about to petition her majesty the queen for the release of her highness's cousin; and Higford and Bannister, and the rest of his grace's household--whom, since Mr. Martin went beyond seas, my lord spends much of his time with, and more of it methinks than is beseeming or to the profit of his manners and advancement of his behavior--have told him that this would prepare the way for the greatly-to-be-desired end of his grace's marriage with that queen; and my lord was reckoning up all the fine sports and pageants and noble entertainments would be enacted at Kenninghall and Thetford when that right princely wedding should take place; and how he should himself carry the train of the queen-duchess when she went into church; who was the fairest woman, he said, in the whole world, and none ever seen to be compared with her since the days of Grecian Helen. But when, some days ago, I questioned my lord touching the success of the ambassador's suits, and the queen's answer thereto, he said: 'By my troth, Nan, I understand that her highness sent away the gooseman, for so she entitled Senor Guzman, with a flea in his ear; for she said he had come on a fool's errand, and gave him for