cester hastily.

"She took him up roundly," said Varney, "and asked what my Lord Sussex
had to do with a wife, or my Lord Bishop to speak on such a subject. 'If
marriage is permitted,' she said, 'I nowhere read that it is enjoined.'"

"She likes not marriages, or speech of marriage, among churchmen," said
Leicester.

"Nor among courtiers neither," said Varney; but, observing that
Leicester changed countenance, he instantly added, "that all the ladies
who were present had joined in ridiculing Lord Sussex's housekeeping,
and in contrasting it with the reception her Grace would have assuredly
received at my Lord of Leicester's."

"You have gathered much tidings," said Leicester, "but you have
forgotten or omitted the most important of all. She hath added another
to those dangling satellites whom it is her pleasure to keep revolving
around her."

"Your lordship meaneth that Raleigh, the Devonshire youth," said
Varney--"the Knight of the Cloak, as they call him at court?"

"He may be Knight of the Garter one day, for aught I know," said
Leicester, "for he advances rapidly--she hath capped verses with him,
and such fooleries. I would gladly abandon, of my own free will, the
part--I have in her fickle favour; but I will not be elbowed out of
it by the clown Sussex, or this new upstart. I hear Tressilian is
with Sussex also, and high in his favour. I would spare him for
considerations, but he will thrust himself on his fate. Sussex, too, is
almost as well as ever in his health."

"My lord," replied Varney, "there will be rubs in the smoothest road,
specially when it leads uphill. Sussex's illness was to us a godsend,
from which I hoped much. He has recovered, indeed, but he is not now
more formidable than ere he fell ill, when he received more than one
foil in wrestling with your lordship. Let not your heart fail you, my
lord, and all shall be well."

"My heart never failed me, sir," replied Leicester.

"No, my lord," said Varney; "but it has betrayed you right often. He
that would climb a tree, my lord, must grasp by the branches, not by the
blossom."

"Well, well, well!" said Leicester impatiently; "I understand thy
meaning--my heart shall neither fail me nor seduce me. Have my retinue
in order--see that their array be so splendid as to put down, not only
the rude companions of Ratcliffe, but the retainers of every other
nobleman and courtier. Let them be well armed withal, but without any
outward display of thei