rough the double
door. When the laughter had subsided, the Earl of Derby turned to Sir
George and said:--

"Sir George, this insult is unbearable, and I shall expect satisfaction
for it." Then he turned to the queen: "I beg that your Majesty will give
me leave to depart with my son."

"Granted," answered Elizabeth, and father and son started to leave the
room, moving backward toward the great doors. Sir George asked the earl
and Lord Stanley to remain, and in the presence of the company who had
witnessed the insult, he in the humblest manner made abject apology for
the treatment his distinguished guests had received at the hands of his
daughter. He very honestly and in all truth disclaimed any sympathy with
Dorothy's conduct, and offered, as the only reparation he could make, to
punish her in some way befitting the offence. Then he conducted the guests
to the mounting block near the entrance tower and saw them depart. Dorothy
had solved her father's dilemma with a vengeance.

Sir George was not sure that he wanted to be angry at Dorothy, though he
felt it was a duty he owed to himself and to the Stanleys. He had wished
that the girl would in some manner defer the signing of the contract, but
he had not wanted her to refuse young Stanley's hand in a manner so
insulting that the match would be broken off altogether.

As the day progressed, and as Sir George pondered over Dorothy's conduct,
he grew more inclined to anger; but during the afternoon she kept well
under the queen's wing, and he found no opportunity to give vent to his
ill-temper.

Late that night he called me to his room. He had been drinking during the
evening and was poised between good-humored hilarity and ill-tempered
ferocity. The latter condition was usually the result of his libations.
When I entered the room it was evident he was amused.

"Did you ever hear or see such brazen effrontery?" he asked, referring to
Dorothy's treatment of the Stanleys. "Is there another girl on earth who
would have conceived the absurd thought, or, having conceived it, would
have dared to carry it out?"

I took a chair and replied, "I think there is not another."

"I hope not," continued Sir George. He sat in thought for a moment, and
then broke forth into a great laugh. When he had finished laughing he
said: "I admit it was laughable and--and pretty--beautiful. Damme, I
didn't know the girl could do it, Malcolm! I didn't know she had it in
her. There is not anothe