The show was over for that day, and the Queen commanded that the tilt should be run again on the following morning, which was Whit-Tuesday. After a great many more speeches and confessions of weariness, the four knights fell to work with such renewed energy that, we are told, what with shivering swords and lusty blows, it was as if the Greeks were alive again, and the Trojan war renewed--ending in the defeat of the Four Foster Children of Desire, who were, as was only probable, beaten in the unequal contest. The Queen was loud in her praise of the 'pleasant sport,' which had delighted the gentlemen in whose honour it had been all arranged; and she called up Philip Sidney for especial thanks, and, tapping him on the shoulder, bid him repair to the banqueting-hall and discourse some sweet music on his mandoline, and converse with the French Ambassadors. For, she said, speaking herself in fluent and excellent French,-- 'This good Mr Philip Sidney, I would have you to know, has the command of many foreign tongues, and there are few to match him in Latin and Greek, as well as those languages spoken in our own time in divers countries.' 'Ah, madam!' Philip said, 'there is one who surpasses not only my poor self in learning, but surpasses also the finest scholars that the world can produce. Need I name that one, gentlemen,' he said, with a courtly bow and kneeling as he kissed the Queen's hand, 'for she it is who has to-day been pleased to give, even to us, Four Children of Desire--defeated as we are--the meed of praise, which is, from her, a priceless dower.' This flattery was precisely what Elizabeth hoped for, and she was well pleased that it should be offered in the hearing of those ambassadors, who would, doubtless, repeat it in the ears of the Duke of Anjou. In reply, one of the soft-spoken Frenchmen said,-- 'Mr Sidney's fame has reached our ears, Madam. We know him to be what you are pleased to call him; nor will we for a moment dispute his assertion that, learned as he is, he must yield the palm to his gracious Sovereign.' A few more flattering speeches were tendered; but a keen observer might have noticed that there was a touch of irony, even of distrust, in the tone, if not in the words, of the ambassadors' chief spokesman. For if Philip Sidney's fame as a scholar and a statesman had reached France, his fame also as a staunch defender of the Reformed Faith had also reached it, with the report that he had been, a few years before, bold enough to remonstrate with the Queen when the proposal of her marriage with the Duke had been formally made, and that his opposition had been strong enough to turn the scale against it, at the time. * * * * *