er, and full of courage.
Sometimes she met with accidents which were attended with some
danger. Once, while hunting the stag, and riding at full speed with a
great company of ladies and gentlemen behind her and before her, her
dress got caught by the bough of a tree, and she was pulled to the
ground. The horse went on. Several other riders drove by her without
seeing her, as she had too much composure and fortitude to attract
their attention by outcries and lamentations. They saw her, however,
at last, and came to her assistance. They brought back her horse,
and, smoothing down her hair, which had fallen into confusion, she
mounted again, and rode on after the stag as before.

Notwithstanding all these means of enjoyment and diversion, Mary was
subjected to a great deal of restraint. The rules of etiquette are
very precise and very strictly enforced in royal households, and they
were still more strict in those days than they are now. The king was
very ceremonious in all his arrangements, and was surrounded by a
multitude of officers who performed every thing by rule. As Mary grew
older, she was subjected to greater and greater restraint. She used
to spend a considerable portion of every day in the apartments of
Queen Catharine, the wife of the King of France and the mother of the
little Francis to whom she was to be married. Mary and Queen
Catharine did not, however, like each other very well. Catharine was
a woman of strong mind and of an imperious disposition; and it is
supposed by some that she was jealous of Mary because she was more
beautiful and accomplished and more generally beloved than her own
daughters, the princesses of France. At any rate, she treated Mary in
rather a stern and haughty manner, and it was thought that she would
finally oppose her marriage to Francis her son.

And yet Mary was at first very much pleased with Queen Catharine, and
was accustomed to look up to her with great admiration, and to feel
for her a very sincere regard. She often went into the queen's
apartments, where they sat together and talked, or worked upon their
embroidery, which was a famous amusement for ladies of exalted rank
in those days. Mary herself at one time worked a large piece, which
she sent as a present to the nuns in the convent where she had
resided; and afterward, in Scotland, she worked a great many things,
some of which still remain, and may be seen in her ancient rooms in
the palace of Holyrood House. She le