Of what use is it to argue the equality of human kind to a man who honestly thinks he is better than any one else, or to one who really believes that some one else is better than he; and why dispute about the various ways of saving one’s soul, when you are not even sure you have a soul to save?  When I open my mouth for public utterance, the king is the best man in Christendom, and his premier peer of the realm the next best.  When the king is a Catholic I go to Mass; since, praised be the Lord, I have brains enough not to let my head interfere with the set ways of a stone wall.

Now, when Mary returned the whole court rejoiced, and I was anxious for Brandon to meet her and that they should become friends.  There would be no trouble in bringing this meeting about, since, as you know, I was upon terms of intimate friendship with Mary, and was the avowed, and, as I thought, at least hoped, all but accepted lover of her first lady in waiting and dearest friend, Lady Jane Bolingbroke.  Brandon, it is true, was not noble; not even an English knight, while I was both knighted and noble; but he was of as old a family as England boasted, and near of kin to some of the best blood of the land.  The meeting came about sooner than I expected, and was very near a failure.  It was on the second morning after Mary’s arrival at Greenwich.  Brandon and I were walking in the palace park when we met Jane, and I took the opportunity to make these, my two best-loved friends, acquainted.

“How do you do, Master Brandon?” said Lady Jane, holding out her plump little hand, so white and soft, and dear to me.  “I have heard something of you the last day or so from Sir Edwin, but had begun to fear he was not going to give me the pleasure of knowing you.  I hope I may see you often now, and that I may present you to my mistress.”

With this, her eyes, bright as overgrown dew-drops, twinkled with a mischievous little smile, as if to say:  “Ah, another large handsome fellow to make a fool of himself.”

Brandon acquiesced in the wish she had made, and, after the interchange of a few words, Jane said her mistress was waiting at the other side of the grounds, and that she must go.  She then ran off with a laugh and a courtesy, and was soon lost to sight behind the shrubbery at the turning of the walk.

In a short time we came to a summer house near the marble boat-landing, where we found the queen and some of her ladies awaiting the rest of their party for a trip down the river, which had been planned the day before.  Brandon was known to the queen and several of the ladies, although he had not been formally presented at an audience.  Many of the king’s friends enjoyed a considerable intimacy with the whole court without ever receiving the public stamp of recognition, socially, which goes with a formal presentation.

The queen, seeing us, sent me off to bring the king.  After I had gone, she asked if any one had seen the Princess Mary, and Brandon told her Lady Jane had said she was at the other side of the grounds.  Thereupon her majesty asked Brandon to find the princess and to say that she was wanted.