"The place that has most excited my interest," said Wyllys, "is the room in the palace where Rizzio was killed. It is not the most interesting place I have seen, of course, but it has most awakened my curiosity. "Will you not tell us the history of Rizzio?" "To do so," said Master Lewis, "would require some account of the whole of Queen Mary's life. The romance of Queen Mary's story will have a freshness, after what you have now seen. I will do the best I can to relate those incidents which make up the STORY OF QUEEN MARY AND RIZZIO. "Mary, Queen of Scots, was perhaps the most beautiful in person and winning in manners and polite accomplishments of any modern queen. She was the daughter of James V. of Scotland and Mary of Lorraine. Her father heard of her birth on his death-bed. He had hoped his heir would prove a son. "'It came with a lass, and it will end with a lass,' said he. "The crown of Scotland came with the daughter of Bruce, and ended with unfortunate Mary. "Mary became queen before she was a week old. Little she knew, in her innocent cradle at Linlithgow, of the crown waiting her head or the kingdom that was ruled in her name. "Her childhood was like a fairy story. She had there Marys for playmates, as she herself was named Mary; and each Mary was the daughter of a noble family. "When six years of age she was given in marriage to Francis II., the son of the French King. The French fleet carried her away from the rugged shores of Scotland, and the Scottish Marys went with her. "Ten years were passed amid the gayeties and splendors of the French court, and then, at the age of sixteen, she was married, amid great pomp and rejoicings, to the Dauphin, whose courtly devotion and elegant society she had long enjoyed. The associations of the young pair before marriage had been very happy. They delighted to be with each other even in society, when they would often separate themselves from the gay throngs around them. "The next year found Francis on the throne, and Mary seemed to be the happiest queen in the world. "But the following year the young king died, childless, and Mary was compelled to return to Scotland. "She sailed from Calais in the late summer of another changeful year. She wept when the shores of France faded from her sight, and expressed her regret in a tender poem, which you may have read. [Illustration: {FRANCIS II. OF FRANCE.}] "Mary was a Catholic. Scotland had adopted the Reformed Faith, and the Scots received her with coldness and suspicion. "Mary's life from childhood to her imprisonment was a series of romances associated with marriage schemes. Francis had not been long dead before many of the courts of Europe were planning marriage alliances with the beautiful Queen. The kings of France, Sweden, Denmark, Don Carlos of Spain, the Archduke of Austria, and many others of lesser rank were named as suitable candidates for her hand.