mendations, perhaps be kissed
by her, would be supreme bliss. Nay, she still hoped that there would
be an interference of the higher powers on her behalf, which would give
her a triumph.

No! Captain Talbot came home, saying, "So, Mistress Sue, thou art a
steadfast woman, to have resisted my lady's will!"

"I knew, my good husband, that thou wouldst never see our Cis even in
sport a player!"

"Assuredly not, and thou hadst the best of it, for when Mistress Bess
came in as full of wrath as a petard of powder, and made your refusal
known, my lord himself cried out, 'And she's in the right o't! What a
child may do in sport is not fit for a gentlewoman in earnest.'"

"Then, hath not my lord put a stop to the whole?"

"Fain would he do so, but the Countess and her daughters are set on
carrying out the sport. They have set Master Sniggius to indite the
speeches, and the boys of the school are to take the parts for their
autumn interlude."

"Surely that is perilous, should it come to the knowledge of those at
Court."

"Oh, I promise you, Sniggius hath a device for disguising all that
could give offence. The Queen will become Semiramis or Zenobia, I know
not which, and my Lord of Leicester, Master Hatton, and the others,
will be called Ninus or Longinus, or some such heathenish long-tailed
terms, and speak speeches of mighty length. Are they to be in Latin,
Humfrey?"

"Oh no, sir," said Humfrey, with a shudder. "Master Sniggius would
have had them so, but the young ladies said they would have nothing to
do with the affair if there were one word of Latin uttered. It is bad
enough as it is. I am to be Philidaspes, an Assyrian knight, and have
some speeches to learn, at least one is twenty-five lines, and not one
is less than five!"

"A right requital for thy presumptuous and treasonable game, my son,"
said his father, teasing him.

"And who is to be the Queen?" asked the mother.

"Antony Babington," said Humfrey, "because he can amble and mince more
like a wench than any of us. The worse luck for him. He will have
more speeches than any one of us to learn."

The report of the number of speeches to be learnt took off the sting of
Cis's disappointment, though she would not allow that it did so,
declaring with truth that she could learn by hearing faster than any of
the boys. Indeed, she did learn all Humfrey's speeches, and Antony's
to boot, and assisted both of them with all her might in committing
them