'Y'had best forget it,' the Lady Mary answered. 'Nay,' the Queen said. 'I have known too well what it was to go supperless to my bed to forget it. A great shadowy place--all shadows, where the night airs crept in under the rafters.' She was thinking of the maids' dormitory at her grandmother's, the old Duchess. 'I am climbed very high,' she said; 'but to think----' She was such a poor man's child and held of only the littlest account, herding with the maids and the servingmen's children. At eight by the clock her grandmother locked her and all the maids--at times there were but ten, at times as many as a score--into that great dormitory that was, in fact, nothing but one long attic or grange beneath the bare roof. And sometimes the maids told tales or slept soon, and sometimes their gallants, grooms and others, came climbing through the windows with rope ladders. They would bring pasties and wines and lights, and coarsely they would revel. 'Why,' she said, 'I had a gallant myself. He was a musician, but I have forgot his name. Aye, and then there was another, Dearham, I think; but I have heard he is since dead. He may have been my cousin; we were so many in family, I have a little forgot.' She stood still, searching her memory, with her eyes distant. The Lady Mary surveyed her face with a curious irony. 'Why, what a simple Queen you are!' she said. 'This is something rustic.' The Queen joined her hands together before her, as if she caught at a clue. 'I do remember me,' she said. 'It was a make of a comedy. This Dearham, calling himself my cousin, beat this music musician for calling himself my gallant. Then goes the musicker to my grandam, bidding the old Duchess rise up again one hour after she had sought her bed. So comes my grandam and turns the key in the padlock and looketh in over all the gallimaufrey of lights and pasties and revels. 'Why,' she continued. 'I think I was beaten upon that occasion, but I could not well tell why. And I was put to sleep in another room. And later came my father home from some war. And he was angry that I had consorted so with false minions, and had me away to his own poor house. And there I had Udal for my Magister and evil fare and many beatings. But this Mary Lascelles was my bed-fellow.' 'Why, forget it,' the Lady Mary said again. 'Other teachers would bid me remember it that I might remain humble,' Katharine answered. 'Y'are humble enow and to spare,' the Lady Mary said. 'And these are not good memories for such a place as this. Y'had best keep this Mary Lascelles at a great distance.' Katharine said-- 'No; for I have passed my word.' 'Then reward her very fully,' the Lady Mary commended, and the Queen answered-- 'No, for that is against my conscience. What have I to fear now that I be Queen?' Mary shrugged her squared shoulders. 'Where is your Latin,' she said, 'with its _nulla dies felix_--call no day fortunate till it be ended.'