thinks he is better than any one else, or to one who really
believes that some one else is better than he; and why dispute about
the various ways of saving one's soul, when you are not even sure you
have a soul to save? When I open my mouth for public utterance, the
king is the best man in Christendom, and his premier peer of the realm
the next best. When the king is a Catholic I go to Mass; since,
praised be the Lord, I have brains enough not to let my head interfere
with the set ways of a stone wall.

Now, when Mary returned the whole court rejoiced, and I was anxious
for Brandon to meet her and that they should become friends. There
would be no trouble in bringing this meeting about, since, as you
know, I was upon terms of intimate friendship with Mary, and was the
avowed, and, as I thought, at least hoped, all but accepted lover of
her first lady in waiting and dearest friend, Lady Jane Bolingbroke.
Brandon, it is true, was not noble; not even an English knight, while
I was both knighted and noble; but he was of as old a family as
England boasted, and near of kin to some of the best blood of the
land. The meeting came about sooner than I expected, and was very near
a failure. It was on the second morning after Mary's arrival at
Greenwich. Brandon and I were walking in the palace park when we met
Jane, and I took the opportunity to make these, my two best-loved
friends, acquainted.

"How do you do, Master Brandon?" said Lady Jane, holding out her
plump little hand, so white and soft, and dear to me. "I have heard
something of you the last day or so from Sir Edwin, but had begun to
fear he was not going to give me the pleasure of knowing you. I hope I
may see you often now, and that I may present you to my mistress."

With this, her eyes, bright as overgrown dew-drops, twinkled with a
mischievous little smile, as if to say: "Ah, another large handsome
fellow to make a fool of himself."

Brandon acquiesced in the wish she had made, and, after the
interchange of a few words, Jane said her mistress was waiting at the
other side of the grounds, and that she must go. She then ran off with
a laugh and a courtesy, and was soon lost to sight behind the
shrubbery at the turning of the walk.

In a short time we came to a summer house near the marble
boat-landing, where we found the queen and some of her ladies awaiting
the rest of their party for a trip down the river, which had been
planned the day before. Brandon was k