"Such a pretty arm! Why must we get dressed? I like to push my fingers through your soft hair and tangle your golden curls. Listen, pretty one; I will not allow you to let your women kiss your fair neck and your pretty shoulders any more! I am jealous of the Scotch mists for having touched them." "Will you not come to see my beloved country? The Scotch would love you, and there would be no rebellions, as there are here." "Who rebels in our kingdom?" said François de Valois, wrapping himself in his gown, and drawing his wife on to his knee. "Yes, this is very pretty play," said she, withdrawing her cheek from his kiss. "But you have to reign, if you please, my liege." "Who talks of reigning?--This morning I want to----" "Need you say 'I want to,' when you can do what you will?--That is the language of neither king nor lover. However, that is not the matter on hand--we have important business to attend to." "Oh!" said the King, "it is a long time since we have had any business to do.--Is it amusing?" "Not at all," said Mary; "we must make a move." "I will wager, my pretty one, that you have seen one of your uncles, who manage matters so well that, at seventeen, I am a King only in name. I really know not why, since the first Council, I have ever sat at one; they could do everything quite as well by setting a crown on my chair; I see everything through their eyes, and settle matters blindfold." "Indeed, monsieur," said the Queen, standing up and assuming an air of annoyance, "you had agreed never again to give me the smallest trouble on that score, but to leave my uncles to exercise your royal power for the happiness of your people. A nice people they are! Why, if you tried to govern them unaided, they would swallow you whole like a strawberry. They need warriors to rule them--a stern master gloved with iron; while you--you are a charmer whom I love just as you are, and should not love if you were different--do you hear, my lord?" she added, bending down to kiss the boy, who seemed inclined to rebel against this speech, but who was mollified by the caress. "Oh, if only they were not your uncles!" cried Francis. "I cannot endure that Cardinal; and when he puts on his insinuating air and his submissive ways, and says to me with a bow, 'Sire, the honor of the Crown and the faith of your fathers is at stake, your Majesty will never allow----' and this and that--I am certain he toils for nothing but his cursed House of Lorraine." "How well you mimic him!" cried the Queen. "But why do you not make these Guises inform you of what is going forward, so as to govern by and by on your own account when you are of full age? I am your wife, and your honor is mine. We will reign, sweetheart--never fear! But all will not be roses for us till we are free to please ourselves. There is nothing so hard for a King as to govern!