'I don't understand a bit,' said Una. 'Eh? What did _you_ make of it, young Burleigh?' 'I'm not quite sure,' Dan began, 'but----' 'You never can be--with a woman. But----' 'But I thought Gloriana meant the cousins to go back to the Gascons' Graveyard, wherever that was.' ''Twas Virginia afterwards. Her plantation of Virginia.' 'Virginia afterwards, and stop Philip from taking it. Didn't she say she'd lend 'em guns?' 'Right so. But not ships--_then_.' 'And I thought you meant they must have told her they'd do it off their own bat, without getting her into a row with Philip. Was I right?' 'Near enough for a Minister of the Queen. But remember she gave the lads full time to change their minds. She was three long days at Rye Royal--knighting of fat Mayors. When she came back to Brickwall, they met her a mile down the road, and she could feel their eyes burn through her riding-mask. Chris Hatton, poor fool, was vexed at it. '"You would not birch them when I gave you the chance," says she to Chris. "Now you must get me half an hour's private speech with 'em in Brickwall garden. Eve tempted Adam in a garden. Quick, man, or I may repent!"' 'She was a Queen. Why did she not send for them herself,' said Una. The lady shook her head. 'That was never her way. I've seen her walk to her own mirror by bye-ends, and the woman that cannot walk straight _there_ is past praying for. Yet I would have you pray for her! What else--what else in England's name could she have done?' She lifted her hand to her throat for a moment. 'Faith,' she cried, 'I'd forgotten the little green shoes! She left 'em at Brickwall--so she did. And I remember she gave the Norgem parson--John Withers, was he?--a text for his sermon--"Over Edom have I cast out my shoe." Neat, if he'd understood!' 'I don't understand,' said Una. 'What about the two cousins?' 'You are as cruel as a woman,' the lady answered. '_I_ was not to blame. I told you I gave 'em time to change their minds. On my honour (_ay de mi!_), she asked no more of 'em at first than to wait a while off that coast--the Gascons' Graveyard--to hover a little if their ships chanced to pass that way--they had only one tall ship and a pinnace--only to watch and bring me word of Philip's doings. One must watch Philip always. What a murrain right had he to make any plantation there, a hundred leagues north of his Spanish Main, and only six weeks from England? By my dread father's soul, I tell you he had none--none!' She stamped her red foot again, and the two children shrunk back for a second.