nown to the queen and several of
the ladies, although he had not been formally presented at an
audience. Many of the king's friends enjoyed a considerable intimacy
with the whole court without ever receiving the public stamp of
recognition, socially, which goes with a formal presentation.

The queen, seeing us, sent me off to bring the king. After I had
gone, she asked if any one had seen the Princess Mary, and Brandon
told her Lady Jane had said she was at the other side of the grounds.
Thereupon her majesty asked Brandon to find the princess and to say
that she was wanted.

Brandon started off and soon found a bevy of girls sitting on some
benches under a spreading oak, weaving spring flowers. He had never
seen the princess, so could not positively know her. As a matter of
fact, he did know her, as soon as his eyes rested on her, for she
could not be mistaken among a thousand--there was no one like her or
anything near it. Some stubborn spirit of opposition, however,
prompted him to pretend ignorance. All that he had heard of her
wonderful power over men, and the servile manner in which they fell
before her, had aroused in him a spirit of antagonism, and had
begotten a kind of distaste beforehand. He was wrong in this, because
Mary was not a coquette in any sense of the word, and did absolutely
nothing to attract men, except to be so beautiful, sweet and winning
that they could not let her alone; for all of which surely the prince
of fault-finders himself could in no way blame her.

She could not help that God had seen fit to make her the fairest being
on earth, and the responsibility would have to lie where it
belonged--with God; Mary would have none of it. Her attractiveness was
not a matter of volition or intention on her part. She was too young
for deliberate snare-setting--though it often begins very early in
life--and made no effort to attract men. Man's love was too cheap a
thing for her to strive for, and I am sure, in her heart, she would
infinitely have preferred to live without it--that is, until the right
one should come. The right one is always on his way, and, first or
last, is sure to come to every woman--sometimes, alas! too late--and
when he comes, be it late or early, she crowns him, even though he be
a long-eared ass. Blessed crown! and thrice-blessed blindness--else
there were fewer coronations.

So Brandon stirred this antagonism and determined not to see her
manifold perfections, which he fe