before the whole company of the castle. The harsh system of the time
made the good mother think it her duty to requite this rebellion with
the rod, and to set the child down to her seam in the corner, and
there sat Cis, pouting and brooding over what Antony Babington had
told her of what he had picked up when in his page's capacity,
attending his lady, of Queen Mary's admiration of the pretty ways and
airs of the little mimic Queen Bess, till she felt as if she were
defrauded of her due. The captive Queen was her dream, and to hear
her commendations, perhaps be kissed by her, would be supreme bliss.
Nay, she still hoped that there would be an interference of the
higher powers on her behalf, which would give her a triumph.

No! Captain Talbot came home, saying, "So, Mistress Sue, thou art a
steadfast woman, to have resisted my lady's will!"

"I knew, my good husband, that thou wouldst never see our Cis even in
sport a player!"

"Assuredly not, and thou hadst the best of it, for when Mistress Bess
came in as full of wrath as a petard of powder, and made your refusal
known, my lord himself cried out, 'And she's in the right o't! What
a child may do in sport is not fit for a gentlewoman in earnest.'"

"Then, hath not my lord put a stop to the whole?"

"Fain would he do so, but the Countess and her daughters are set on
carrying out the sport. They have set Master Sniggius to indite the
speeches, and the boys of the school are to take the parts for their
autumn interlude."