“Why not, Sire?” says the Queen composedly,— “I am sure I have ate very good asparagus raised out of dung, and your Majesty will admit our eldest son is a compendium of all the virtues.” It sufficed. She knew well that that endearing subject would draw his Majesty from any other (and not infrequently used it for the purpose) as the sole one on which they were heartily agreed. He raged on ferociously on this and the Duchess was forgot. Indeed ’twas near midnight when he rose to go to his own apartment and the Queen almost dropping from weariness of mind and body. But before he departed his Majesty bestowed one piece of the news on his family— “Since you love to be poking your nose into other people’s business, Madam, instead of minding your own, here’s a scandal for you. Berkeley, just come down from London declares Gay’s Polly fled last night after the piece, ’tis not known with whom and is not yet found today. ’Tis a slap in the face for Gay and Queensbury and the whole malicious crew that I can’t but rejoice in, but ’tis what all the world must expect from the Newgate crew that frequents that playhouse. If right had its own they should one and all stand in the pillory.” The door closed behind their Sovereign and the three looked upon one another. “If ’tis true,”—said the royal lady—“it may be made an engine to hurt the Duchess that would have such a wench in her house. ’Twas worthy company for a Hyde however. What were the Hydes when all’s said and done? Make it your business, Hervey, to discover the threads in the intrigue. The worst is, they have all the best lampooners on their side—Swift, Pope, and half a hundred more. I don’t know how ’tis, but all the fools hang on to us.” “’Tis because your Majesty has wits and brains enough to furnish forth your whole party and make it victorious. And to spare. Let ’em have all the others, say I, so long only as we keep your Majesty to counsel us.” ’Twas said with a real touch of admiration and the Queen was not insensible of it. He assisted her to raise her wearied body from the chair and added, “I know not, Madam, how you endure as you do. Sure ’tis either your sense of superiority or your fine wit that enables you to laugh where other women would weep and tremble. A Stoic might draw lessons in fortitude from such a spectacle.” She endeavoured to summon a smile into her face to match the laughter he spoke of, and faintly succeeded. He knew what disgust and suffering lay behind it and respected her the more in his infidel fashion for her contempt of her husband, and her resolution to hide it from the world. “’Tis a coarse, gross woman,”—he mused as he went along the corridor later,—“but the heart and brain and courage of a man. ’Tis she should have been King of England, and perhaps we had then matcht Elizabeth. The vicious fool she uses is a poor tool for such a hand. But where’s Berkeley?”