manor-house, and the actors were to be dressed in character from my
lady's stores.

"They will ruin it, these clumsy English, after their own fashion,"
said Queen Mary, among her ladies. "It was the unpremeditated grace
and innocent audacity of the little ones that gave the charm. Now it
will be a mere broad farce, worthy of Bess of Hardwicke. Mais que
voulez vous?"

The performance was, however, laid under a great disadvantage by the
absolute refusal of Richard and Susan Talbot to allow their Cicely to
assume the part of Queen Elizabeth. They had been dismayed at her
doing so in child's play, and since she could read fluently, write
pretty well, and cipher a little, the good mother had decided to put
a stop to this free association with the boys at the castle, and to
keep her at home to study needlework and housewifery. As to her
acting with boys before the assembled households, the proposal seemed
to them absolutely insulting to any daughter of the Talbot line, and
they had by this time forgotten that she was no such thing. Bess
Cavendish, the special spoilt child of the house, even rode down,
armed with her mother's commands, but her feudal feeling did not here
sway Mistress Susan.

Public acting was esteemed an indignity for women, and, though Cis
was a mere child, all Susan's womanhood awoke, and she made answer
firmly that she could not obey my lady Countess in this.

Bess flounced out of the house, indignantly telling her she should
rue the day, and Cis herself cried passionately, longing after the
fine robes and jewels, and the presentation of herself as a queen