e denied admittance.

The Duke of Columna gaily begged for a dry shelter until the shower
was over, but the Landgrave requested to be announced to the Queen of
Hungary.

The latter, however, had also declined to grant any audiences that
afternoon. The royal lady, the Emperor's favourite sister, was in
her own room, adjoining her imperial brother's, talking with Don Luis
Quijada, the brave nobleman of whom the Spanish and the Netherland
soldiers had spoken with equal warmth.

His personal appearance rendered it an easy matter to believe in the
sincerity of their words, for the carriage of his slender, vigorous
form revealed all the pride of the Castilian noble. His face, with its
closely cut pointed beard, was the countenance of a true warrior, and
the expression of his black eyes showed the valiant spirit of a loyal,
kind, and simple heart.

The warm confidence with which Mary, the widow of the King of Hungary,
who fell in the Turkish war, gazed into Quijada's finely modelled,
slightly bronzed countenance proved that she knew how to estimate his
worth aright. She had sent for him to open her whole heart.

The vivacious woman, a passionate lover of the chase, found life in
Ratisbon unendurable. She would have left the city long ago to perform
her duties in the Netherlands--which she ruled as regent in the name
of her imperial brother--and devote herself to hunting, to her heart's
content, if the condition of the monarch's health had not detained her
near him.

She pitied Charles because she loved him, yet she was weary of playing
the sick nurse.

She had just indignantly informed Quijada what an immense burden of
work, in spite of the pangs of the gout, her suffering brother had
imposed upon himself ever since the first cock-crow. But he would take
no better care of himself, and therefore it was difficult to help him.
Was it not utterly unprecedented? Directly after mass he had examined
dozens of papers, made notes on the margins, and affixed his signature;
then he received Father Pedro de Soto, his confessor, the nuncio, the
English and the Venetian ambassadors; and, lastly, had an interview with
young Granvelle, the Bishop of Arras, which had continued three full
hours, and perhaps might be going on still had not Dr. Mathys, the
leech, put an end to it.

Queen Mary had just found him utterly exhausted, with his face buried in
his hands.

"And you, too," she added in conclusion, "can not help admitting that