d in the space below, followed
by the Knights Tilters--at their head the Queen's Champion, Sir Henry
Lee: twenty-five of the most gallant and favoured of the courtiers of
Elizabeth, including the gravest of her counsellors and the youngest
gallant who had won her smile, Master Christopher Hatton. Some of these
brave suitors, taken from the noblest families, had appeared in the
tilt-yard every anniversary of the year of her accession, and had
lifted their romantic office, which seemed but the service of enamoured
knights, into an almost solemn dignity.

The vast crowd disposed itself around the great improvised yard where
the Knights Tilters were to engage, and the Queen, followed by her
retinue, descended to the dais which had been set up near the palace.
Her white satin gown, roped with pearls only at the neck and breast,
glistened in the bright sun, and her fair hair took on a burnished
radiance. As Angele passed with her in the gorgeous procession, she
could not but view the scene with admiring eye, albeit her own sweet
sober attire, a pearly grey, seemed little in keeping; for the ladies
and lords were most richly attired, and the damask and satin cloaks,
crimson velvet gowns, silk hoods, and jewelled swords and daggers made a
brave show. She was like some moth in a whorl of butterflies.

Her face was pale, and her eye had a curious disturbed look, as though
they had seen frightening things. The events of last evening had tried
her simple spirit, and she shrank from this glittering show; but the
knowledge that her lover's life was in danger, and that her happiness
was here and now at stake, held her bravely to her place, beset as it
was with peril; for the Queen, with that eccentricity which had lifted
her up yesterday, might cast her down to-day, and she had good reason
to fear the power and influence of Leicester, whom she knew with a sure
instinct was intent on Michel's ruin. Behind all her nervous shrinking
and her heart's doubt, the memory of the face of the stranger she had
seen last night with Sir Andrew Melvill tortured her. She could not find
the time and place where she had seen the eyes that, in the palace, had
filled her with mislike and abhorrence as they looked upon the Queen.
Again and again in her fitful sleep had she dreamt of him, and a sense
of foreboding was heavy upon her--she seemed to hear the footfall of
coming disaster. The anxiety of her soul lent an unnatural brightness to
her eyes; so th