At supper, which had been hastened according to her order, she, as usual, ate little. Her sorrowing attendants rivalled each other in zeal to serve and wait upon her, listening eagerly to her slightest word. Since Melville's departure, Bourgoing had taken his place as steward. He now presented the dishes with one trembling hand, furtively wiping away his tears with the other. Mary alone remained perfectly calm. Sometimes she seemed absorbed in a profound reverie, while a sweet smile animated her countenance, as if she had received some joyful tidings; at others she conversed with her faithful physician. "Did you remark, Bourgoing," said she, "what Lord Kent said in his interview with me? He said that my life would have been the death of their religion, and that my death will be its life. Oh, how happy those words make me! Here at last is the truth. It has declared itself in a striking manner, and I beg you to observe it. They told me that I was to die because I had plotted against the Queen, and here is Lord Kent sent to me to convert me, and what does he tell me?--that I am to die on account of my religion. If he hoped to make me embrace his faith," continued Mary with a smile, "he has quite lost his time, and certainly to convince me it would have required another sort of doctor than that one. For all the lives in the world I would not change in one little thought."[120] [Footnote 120: Chantelauze, p. 393.] "When supper was over," says Bourgoing, "Her Majesty sent for all her servants and exhorted them to mutual charity, and in a long discourse took leave of them, forgiving them all, and begging them to pray God for her. She admonished each separately, charging them to live at peace with each other, and to give up all past enmities or bitterness, and she showed in all this great proofs of wisdom, understanding, and constancy." As the end draws near, the faithful physician curtails his journal, as if unable to describe more fully what it grieved him so deeply to witness, but other authorities give us a fuller picture of this affecting scene, which will serve to supplement this brief description.[121] [Footnote 121: Some of the facts of Bourgoing's narrative of the last days were communicated by him to the anonymous author of the _Mort de la Royne d'Escosse_, and to Blackwood. See Jebb, ii.] At the close of supper, and when her attendants were all assembled round her, the Queen drank to their welfare and asked them if they would not drink to hers. They all threw themselves on their knees, and mingling their tears with the wine, begged her forgiveness for any faults they might have been guilty of. "With all my heart, my children," she replied with a gentle smile, "even as I pray you to forgive me any injustice or harshness of which I may have been guilty towards you."