only nicest observers saw the change; and she never admitted it—perhaps not to herself.

The gossiping Paul Hentzner, who had an ambassador's chances of observation, says of her, on her way to chapel at Greenwich:

"Next came the Queen, in her sixty-fifth year, as we are told-very majestic: her face, oblong, fair but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked. She had in her ears two pearls with very rich drops; and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels. She was dressed in white silk bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black silk shot with silver threads."

This, observe, was over twenty years after the revels of Kenilworth: and two years beyond this date, when the Queen was sixtyseven, a courtier writes: "Her Majesty is well, and every second day is on horseback." No suitor could say a pleasanter thing to her than -"Your majesty is looking very young!" She danced, when it made her old bones ache to dance.

No suitor could say a more inapt thing than to express a fear that a revel, or a play, or a hunt, or a dance might possibly fatigue her

Majesty. It would bring a warning shake of the head that made the jewels rattle.

But at last the days come-as like days are coming to us all-when she can counterfeit youth no longer. The plays entice her no more. The three thousand court dresses that she left, hang unused in her wardrobe: weaknesses hem her in, turn which way she may. Cecil, the son of her old favorite Burleigh, urges that she must quit her chair-which she clung to, propped with pillows-that she must take to her bed. "Must," she cries, with a kindling of her old passionate life, “little man, little man, thy father never dared to use such a word to his Queen." The gust passes; and she clings to life, as all do, who have such fast, hard grip upon it. In short periods of languor and repose, taking kindly to the issue-going out, as it were, like a lamp. Then, by some windy burst of passion-of hate, flaming up red and white and hot-her voice a scream, her boding of the end a craze, her tenacity of purpose dragging all friends, all hopes, all the world to the terrible edge where she standsthe edge where Essex stood (she bethinks herself with a wild tempest of tears)—the edge where Marie Stuart stood at Fotheringay, in her comely widow's dress; thinks of this with

a shrug that means acquiescence, that means stubborn recognition of a fatal duty: that ghost does no way disturb her.

But there are others which well may. Shall we tell them over?

No; let us leave her with her confessor, saying prayers maybe; her rings on her fingers; the lace upon her pillow; not forgetting certain fine coquetries to the last: strong-souled, keen-thoughted, ambitious, proud, vindictive, passionate woman, with her streaks of tenderness out of which bitter tears flowed-out of which kindlinesses crept to sun themselves, but were quick overshadowed by her pride.

Farewell to her!

In our next talk we shall meet a King-but a King who is less a man than this Queen who is dead.

INDEX