“Madam,” she said, “they all talk of your power to persuade.  Now is the time you could do what would be no small service to this poor Queen, ay, and it may be to your own children.”

“I may not meddle in any matters of the Queen’s,” returned Susan, rather stiffly.

“Nay, but hear me, madam.  It is only to hinder the sending of a letter.”

“That letter which her Grace was about to write yesterday?”

“Even so.  ’Tis no secret, for she read fragments of it aloud, and all her women applauded it with all their might, and laughed over the stings that it would give, but Mr. Curll, who bad to copy it, saith that there is a bitterness in it that can do nothing but make her Majesty of England the more inflamed, not only against my Lady Shrewsbury, but against her who writ the letter, and all concerned.  Why, she hath even brought in the comedy that your children acted in the woodland, and that was afterwards repeated in the hall!”

“You say not so, Mistress Barbara?”

“Indeed I do.  Mr. Curll and Sir Andrew Melville are both of them sore vexed, and would fain have her withdraw it; but Master Nau and all the French part of the household know not how to rejoice enough at such an exposure of my Lady, which gives a hard fling at Queen Elizabeth at the same time!  Nay, I cannot but tell you that there are things in it that Dame Mary Talbot might indeed say, but I know not how Queen Mary could bring herself to set down—­”

Barbara Mowbray ventured no more, and Susan felt hopeless of her task, since how was she by any means to betray knowledge of the contents of the letter?  Yet much that she had heard made her feel very uneasy on all accounts.  She had too much strong family regard for the Countess and for Gilbert Talbot and his wife to hear willingly of what might imperil them, and though royal indignation would probably fly over the heads of the children, no one was too obscure in those Tudor times to stand in danger from a sovereign who might think herself insulted.  Yet as a Hardwicke, and the wife of a Talbot, it was most unlikely that she would have any opening for remonstrance given to her.

However, it was possible that Curll wished to give her an opening, for no sooner were the ladies settled at work than he bowed himself forward and offered his mistress his copy of the letter.

“Is it fair engrossed, good Curll?” asked Mary.

“Thanks.  Then will we keep your copy, and you shall fold and prepare our own for our sealing.”

“Will not your Majesty hear it read over ere it pass out of your hands?” asked Curll.

“Even so,” returned Mary, who really was delighted with the pungency of her own composition.  “Mayhap we may have a point or two to add.”

After what Mistress Barbara had said, Susan was on thorns that Cis should hear the letter; but that good young lady, hating the expressions therein herself, and hating it still more for the girl, bethought her of asking permission to take Mistress Cicely to her own chamber, there to assist her in the folding of some of her laces, and Mary consented.  It was well, for there was much that made the English-bred Susan’s cheeks glow and her ears tingle.