Mistress Beton, sitting bolt upright, looked straight beyond him at the opposite wall with the air of being as unconscious of his presence as Mary Hamilton really was. The latter had indeed been all the morning immersed in a brown study from which it seemed impossible to extricate her. Mistress Carmichael was not in the best of humours, and it may be observed that her fair brow had of late been continually clouded, and her eyes full of tears, without apparent cause. She made not the slightest movement of assistance in the old man’s favour, and even whispered something to Mary Seton with marked and offensive indifference; but the latter, springing gaily from her chair, picked up the fallen skull-cap and returned it to its owner with a pleasant smile, which, saucy as it was, brightened her whole face, like a sunbeam. ‘I thank thee, fair mistress,’ said Knox. ‘These old limbs of mine are stiff now, and the time is not far off when they shall be motionless for evermore. Your knees are young and supple; the more cause have you to be thankful and to bend them while you can in prayer.’ ‘The neck may be stiff as well as the knees,’ answered Mary Seton, glancing meaningly towards the Queen’s chamber. ‘I hope my loyalty may outlast my lissomeness, if I live to be as old as your reverence!’ He smiled on her sorrowfully yet kindly. ‘The young,’ said he, ‘think that they are to live for ever, and the old hope still to live a few years longer. Fair mistress, fear God, do your duty, and snap your fingers at the chances of life.’ Mistress Beton here interposed with stately scorn. ‘We shall scarce take lessons of Master Knox,’ said she, ‘in our duty towards the Queen. Under favour, sir, we need none of your reverence’s teaching in loyalty and obedience.’ He turned good-humouredly towards her, still smiling. ‘Ye are angry with me, fair ladies,’ said he, ‘and why? Because I am too old to learn your courtly graces, and too honest to use your courtly terms? Because I call a fig a fig, when I see one, and a spade a spade. Nay, ye should rather prize and cherish one who can look even on _your_ beauty without his eyes being dazzled, and tell you the truth for your salvation, rather than a lie for your ruin.’ ‘Ye speak fairly,’ answered Mary Seton, who in virtue of her previous civility seemed to have constituted herself in some sort his protectress. ‘Yet I warrant me ye spake not so tenderly to her Majesty even now. I marvel that ye are not abashed to look thus boldly in the face of an anointed Queen!’ ‘Nay, young lady,’ answered the preacher, in a tone of pleasant humour, ‘why should the fair face of a gentlewoman frighten me, who have fronted many angry men? Think ye a bonny brow, unscored by guilt, can be an object of terror, whether it be crowned with a circle of gold like hers, or a wealth of bright hair like your own? No, no, the old man can neither be coaxed nor frightened from doing his duty.’