"What! You can neither trot, pace, nor gallop? I don't believe you can even walk alone." Then she turned toward Sir George. A smile was on her lips, but a look from hell was in her eyes as she said:-- "Father, take a lesson from this day. I gave you fair warning. Bring me no more scurvy cobs for barter nor trade." Then she turned to the Earl of Derby and to her cousin Lord James, made a deep courtesy, and said:-- "You can have no barter with me. Good day." She ran from the room, and a great peal of laughter from all save Sir George and the Stanleys followed her as she passed out through the double door. When the laughter had subsided, the Earl of Derby turned to Sir George and said:-- "Sir George, this insult is unbearable, and I shall expect satisfaction for it." Then he turned to the queen: "I beg that your Majesty will give me leave to depart with my son." "Granted," answered Elizabeth, and father and son started to leave the room, moving backward toward the great doors. Sir George asked the earl and Lord Stanley to remain, and in the presence of the company who had witnessed the insult, he in the humblest manner made abject apology for the treatment his distinguished guests had received at the hands of his daughter. He very honestly and in all truth disclaimed any sympathy with Dorothy's conduct, and offered, as the only reparation he could make, to punish her in some way befitting the offence. Then he conducted the guests to the mounting block near the entrance tower and saw them depart. Dorothy had solved her father's dilemma with a vengeance. Sir George was not sure that he wanted to be angry at Dorothy, though he felt it was a duty he owed to himself and to the Stanleys. He had wished that the girl would in some manner defer the signing of the contract, but he had not wanted her to refuse young Stanley's hand in a manner so insulting that the match would be broken off altogether. As the day progressed, and as Sir George pondered over Dorothy's conduct, he grew more inclined to anger; but during the afternoon she kept well under the queen's wing, and he found no opportunity to give vent to his ill-temper. Late that night he called me to his room. He had been drinking during the evening and was poised between good-humored hilarity and ill-tempered ferocity. The latter condition was usually the result of his libations. When I entered the room it was evident he was amused. "Did you ever hear or see such brazen effrontery?" he asked, referring to Dorothy's treatment of the Stanleys. "Is there another girl on earth who would have conceived the absurd thought, or, having conceived it, would have dared to carry it out?" I took a chair and replied, "I think there is not another."