t the insult to her gracious Majesty, and besides, what might
not happen if such sports ever came to her ears? However, the Countess
ruled Sheffield; and Mary Talbot and Bessie Cavendish ruled the
Countess, and they were bent on their own way. So the representation
was to take place in the great hall of the manor-house, and the actors
were to be dressed in character from my lady's stores.

"They will ruin it, these clumsy English, after their own fashion,"
said Queen Mary, among her ladies. "It was the unpremeditated grace
and innocent audacity of the little ones that gave the charm. Now it
will be a mere broad farce, worthy of Bess of Hardwicke. Mais que
voulez vous?"

The performance was, however, laid under a great disadvantage by the
absolute refusal of Richard and Susan Talbot to allow their Cicely to
assume the part of Queen Elizabeth. They had been dismayed at her
doing so in child's play, and since she could read fluently, write
pretty well, and cipher a little, the good mother had decided to put a
stop to this free association with the boys at the castle, and to keep
her at home to study needlework and housewifery. As to her acting with
boys before the assembled households, the proposal seemed to them
absolutely insulting to any daughter of the Talbot line, and they had
by this time forgotten that she was no such thing. Bess Cavendish, the
special spoilt child of the house, even rode down, armed with her
mother's commands, but her feudal feeling did not here sway Mistress
Susan.

Public acting was esteemed an indignity for women, and, though Cis was
a mere child, all Susan's womanhood awoke, and she made answer firmly
that she could not obey my lady Countess in this.

Bess flounced out of the house, indignantly telling her she should rue
the day, and Cis herself cried passionately, longing after the fine
robes and jewels, and the presentation of herself as a queen before the
whole company of the castle. The harsh system of the time made the
good mother think it her duty to requite this rebellion with the rod,
and to set the child down to her seam in the corner, and there sat Cis,
pouting and brooding over what Antony Babington had told her of what he
had picked up when in his page's capacity, attending his lady, of Queen
Mary's admiration of the pretty ways and airs of the little mimic Queen
Bess, till she felt as if she were defrauded of her due. The captive
Queen was her dream, and to hear her com