“Her house, madam, is one of those tall Dutch mansions with high roof, and many small windows therein, with a stoop or broad flight of steps below, on the banks of a broad and pleasant canal, shaded with fine elm-trees.  There I found her on the stoop, in the shade, with two or three children round her; for she is a mother to all the English orphans there, and they are but too many.  They bring them to her as a matter of course when their parents die, and she keeps them till their kindred in England claim them.  Madam, her queenliness of port hath gained on her.  Had she come, she would not have shamed your Majesty; and it seems that, none knowing her true birth, she is yet well-nigh a princess among the many wives of officers and merchants who dwell at the Hague, and doubly so among the men, to whom she and her husband have never failed to do a kindness.  Well, madam, I weary you.  She greeted me as the tender sister she has ever been, but she would not brook to hear of fears or compassion for my brother.  She would listen to no word of doubt that he was safe, but kept the whole household in perfect readiness for him to come.  At last I spake your Majesty’s gracious message; and, madam, pardon me, but all I got was a sound rating, that I should think any hope of royal splendour or preferment should draw her from waiting for Humfrey.  Ay, she knew he would come!  And if not, she would never be more than his faithful widow.  Had he not given up all for her?  Should she fail in patience because his ship tarried awhile?  No; he should find her ready in his home that he had made for her.”

“Why, this is as good as the Globe Theatre!” cried the Queen, but with a tear glittering in her eye.

“Your Majesty would have said so truly,” said Diccon; “for as I sat at evening, striving hard to make her give over these fantastic notions and consult her true interest, behold she gave a cry—­“Tis his foot!” Yea, and verily there was Humfrey, brown as a berry, having been so far with his mate as to the very mouth of the River Plate.  He had, indeed, lost his Ark of Fortune, but he has come home with a carrack that quadruples her burthen, and with a thousand bars of silver in her hold.  And then, madam, the joy, the kisses, the embraces, and even more—­the look of perfect content, and peace, and trust, were enough to make a bachelor long for a wife.”

“Long to be a fool!” broke out the Queen sharply.  “Look you, lad:  there may be such couples as this Humfrey and—­what call you her?—­ here and there.”

“My father and mother are such.”

“Yea, saucy cockerel as you are; but for one such, there are a hundred others who fret the yoke, and long to be free!  Ay, and this brother of thine, what hath he got with this wife of his but banishment and dread of his own land?”

“Even so, madam; but they still count all they either could have had or hoped for, nought in comparison with their love to one another.”