Burleigh. So ye shall, if ye watch me. 'Twill be as good
as a play.'

'We've never been to a play,' said Una.

The lady looked at her and laughed. 'I'll make one for you. Watch! You
are to imagine that she--Gloriana, Belphoebe, Elizabeth--has gone on a
progress to Rye to comfort her sad heart (maids are often melancholic),
and while she halts at Brickwall House, the village--what was its name?'
She pushed Puck with her foot.

'Norgem,' he croaked, and squatted by the wigwam.

'Norgem village loyally entertains her with a masque or play, and a
Latin oration spoken by the parson, for whose false quantities, if I'd
made 'em in my girlhood, I should have been whipped.'

'You whipped?' said Dan.

'Soundly, sirrah, soundly! She stomachs the affront to her scholarship,
makes her grateful, gracious thanks from the teeth outwards, thus'--(the
lady yawned)--'Oh, a Queen may love her subjects in her heart, and yet
be dog-wearied of 'em 'in body and mind--and so sits down'--her skirts
foamed about her as she sat--'to a banquet beneath Brickwall Oak. Here
for her sins she is waited upon by--What were the young cockerels' names
that served Gloriana at table?'

'Frewens, Courthopes, Fullers, Husseys,' Puck began.

She held up her long jewelled hand. 'Spare the rest! They were the best
blood of Sussex, and by so much the more clumsy in handling the dishes
and plates. Wherefore'--she looked funnily over her shoulder--'you
are to think of Gloriana in a green and gold-laced habit, dreadfully
expecting that the jostling youths behind her would, of pure jealousy or
devotion, spatter it with sauces and wines. The gown was Philip's gift,
too! At this happy juncture a Queen's messenger, mounted and mired,
spurs up the Rye road and delivers her a letter'--she giggled--'a letter
from a good, simple, frantic Spanish gentleman called--Don Philip.'

'That wasn't Philip, King of Spain?'Dan asked.

'Truly, it was. 'Twixt you and me and the bedpost, young Burleigh, these
kings and queens are very like men and women, and I've heard they write
each other fond, foolish letters that none of their ministers should
open.'

'Did her ministers ever open Queen Elizabeth's letters?' said Una.

'Faith, yes! But she'd have done as much for theirs, any day. You are
to think of Gloriana, then (they say she had a pretty hand), excusing
herself thus to the company--for the Queen's time is never her own--and,
while the music strikes up, reading Philip's