rudge you the honour, as, I fear,
some I could name grudge it.'

Philip rose quickly, as if unwilling to enter into the subject, and,
gathering together their papers, the three friends broke up their meeting
and separated till the evening.

Anyone who had seen Philip Sidney as he threw himself on a settle when
Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer had left him, and had watched the profound
sadness of his face as he gave himself up to meditation on the sorrow which
oppressed him, would have found it difficult to imagine how the graceful
courtier, who that evening after the banquet at Whitehall led the Queen, as
a mark of especial favour, through the mazes of the dance, could ever have
so completely thrown off the melancholy mood for one of gaiety and apparent
joyousness. How many looked at him with envy when the Queen gave him her
hand in the dance then much in fashion called the 'Brawl!' This dance had
been lately introduced, and the Queen delighted in it, as it gave her the
opportunity of distinguishing the reigning favourite with an especial mark
of her favour.

This evening the ring was formed of ladies and gentlemen chosen by
Elizabeth, who gorgeously attired, her hoop and stiff brocade making a
wide circle in the centre of the ring, called upon Philip Sidney to stand
there with her.

The Queen then, giving her hand to Philip, pirouetted with him to the sound
of the music, and, stopping before the gentleman she singled out for her
favour, kissed him on the left cheek, while Philip, bending on his knee,
performed the same ceremony with the lady who had been the partner of the
gentleman before whom the Queen had stopped. By the rules of the dance, the
couple who stood in the centre of the ring now changed places with those
who had been saluted, but this did not suit the Queen's mind this evening.

She always delighted to display her dancing powers before her admiring
courtiers, exciting, as she believed, the jealousy of the ladies, who could
not have the same opportunity of showing their graceful movements in the
'Brawl.'

The Queen selected Lord Leicester and Christopher Hatton and Fulke Greville
and several other gentlemen, and curtseyed and tripped like a girl of
sixteen instead of a mature lady of forty-nine.

Elizabeth's caprice made her pass over again and again several courtiers
who were burning with ill-concealed anger as they saw Leicester and his
nephew chosen again and again, while they were passed over.