The nobles and courtiers who had attended the Queen on her pleasure expedition were invited, with royal hospitality, to a splendid banquet in the hall of the Palace.  The table was not, indeed, graced by the presence of the Sovereign; for, agreeable to her idea of what was at once modest and dignified, the Maiden Queen on such occasions was wont to take in private, or with one or two favourite ladies, her light and temperate meal.  After a moderate interval, the court again met in the splendid gardens of the Palace; and it was while thus engaged that the Queen suddenly asked a lady, who was near to her both in place and favour, what had become of the young Squire Lack-Cloak.

The Lady Paget answered, “She had seen Master Raleigh but two or three minutes since standing at the window of a small pavilion or pleasure-house, which looked out on the Thames, and writing on the glass with a diamond ring.”

“That ring,” said the Queen, “was a small token I gave him to make amends for his spoiled mantle.  Come, Paget, let us see what use he has made of it, for I can see through him already.  He is a marvellously sharp-witted spirit.”  They went to the spot, within sight of which, but at some distance, the young cavalier still lingered, as the fowler watches the net which he has set.  The Queen approached the window, on which Raleigh had used her gift to inscribe the following line:—­

     “Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.”

The Queen smiled, read it twice over, once with deliberation to Lady Paget, and once again to herself.  “It is a pretty beginning,” she said, after the consideration of a moment or two; “but methinks the muse hath deserted the young wit at the very outset of his task.  It were good-natured—­were it not, Lady Paget?—­to complete it for him.  Try your rhyming faculties.”

Lady Paget, prosaic from her cradle upwards as ever any lady of the bedchamber before or after her, disclaimed all possibility of assisting the young poet.

“Nay, then, we must sacrifice to the Muses ourselves,” said Elizabeth.

“The incense of no one can be more acceptable,” said Lady Paget; “and your Highness will impose such obligation on the ladies of Parnassus—­”

“Hush, Paget,” said the Queen, “you speak sacrilege against the immortal Nine—­yet, virgins themselves, they should be exorable to a Virgin Queen—­and therefore—­let me see how runs his verse—­

     ‘Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.’

Might not the answer (for fault of a better) run thus?—­

     ‘If thy mind fail thee, do not climb at all.’”

The dame of honour uttered an exclamation of joy and surprise at so happy a termination; and certainly a worse has been applauded, even when coming from a less distinguished author.

The Queen, thus encouraged, took off a diamond ring, and saying, “We will give this gallant some cause of marvel when he finds his couplet perfected without his own interference,” she wrote her own line beneath that of Raleigh.