"What record runs here?" she asked querulously. "A prayer of your
faithful Lords and Commons that your Majesty will grant speech with their
chosen deputies to lay before your Majesty a cause they have at heart."

"Touching of--?" darkly asked the Queen.

"The deputies wait even now--will not your Majesty receive them? They
have come humbly, and will go hence as humbly on the instant, if the hour
is ill chosen."

Immediately Elizabeth's humour changed. A look of passion swept across
her face, but her eyes lighted, and her lips smiled proudly. She avoided
troubles by every means, fought off by subtleties the issues which she
must meet; but when the inevitable hour came none knew so well to meet it
as though it were a dearest friend, no matter what the danger, how great
the stake.

"They are here at my door, these good servants of the State--shall they
be kept dangling?" she said loudly. "Though it were time for prayers
and God's mercy yet should they speak with me, have my counsel, or my
hand upon the sacred parchment of the State. Bring them hither, Cecil.
Now we shall see--Now you shall see, Angele of Rouen, now you shall see
how queens shall have no hearts to call their own, but be head and heart
and soul and body at the will of every churl who thinks he serves the
State and knows the will of Heaven. Stand here at my left hand. Mark
the players and the play."

Kneeling, the deputies presented a resolution from the Lords and Commons
that the Queen should, without more delay, in keeping with her oft-
expressed resolve and the promise of her Council, appoint one who should