It was a pretty room, high up in one of the turrets of the palace, overlooking the Abbey garden, and was full of the little elegancies and comforts which women gather about them, or which seem to grow up around, in the most unlikely places, as a natural consequence of their presence. Quaint tapestry adorned its walls, less hideous than are usually those grotesque efforts of industry, and representing pastoral scenes of love-making and simplicity, not devoid of browsing sheep, limpid streams, and fat little cupids flying about in the air. Scarfs, fans, gloves, and needlework were scattered over the room; and Mary Hamilton’s rosary of fragrant wooden beads, inlaid with gold, hung from the back of a carved oak chair, of which the cushions were triumphs of embroidery wrought by the maids-of-honour themselves. A portrait of the Queen, in her well-known velvet head-dress and voluminous ruff, smiled above the chimney-piece; and immediately under it was placed an elaborate crystal timepiece, of French workmanship, presented by her mistress to Mary Beton, and reverenced equally as a token of the royal good-will and a marvel of mechanical art. The last-named lady glanced at it with the conscious pride of possession. ‘It will be dark in less than an hour,’ said she, folding away the corner of a large square piece of embroidery on which herself and two of her companions were engaged; ‘we have done enough for one day, and these small stitches are very trying to the eyes. I expect the Queen’s summons, too, every minute, for one or other of us.’ ‘She is writing letters in her cabinet,’ answered Mary Carmichael, who had her own reasons for knowing how large a packet had just gone in. ‘I could see her beautiful head bending over her table as I came down the terrace steps in the Abbey garden when I brought you in these roses.’ ‘You haven’t half filled the basket after all!’ exclaimed Mary Seton, who was busy arranging the flowers about the room; ‘and like your sex, my dear, you have taken care to gather plenty of thorns. If I wear a garland of them at the masque to-morrow, as I intended, I shall be a veritable Scotch thistle, not to be touched with impunity; a fitting partner for that masterful border-thief, little Jock Elliot, who cocks his bonnet and sings “Wha dare meddle wi’ me?”’ ‘You have become half a borderer yourself, I think, ever since Bothwell was banished the court,’ answered the other, not quite relishing this allusion to the half-filled basket, of which the spoils were scattered in the gallery. ‘Poor Bothwell!’ answered Mary Seton, with a sigh; ‘now that is what I call a _man_! When he walks through the court in his armour, he looks like a tower amongst the other lords. There is not a taller or a more stalwart figure amongst all his riders, proper men though they be, except perhaps that gigantic henchman of his.’ And again the damsel sighed, and looked grave for an instant, though she was laughing merrily again the next.