CHRISTMAS WITH QUEEN BESS 203

her perfumed fan—“ thou that comest up out of the field
with a song like the angels sing—what wilt thou have:
that thou mayst sing in our choir and play on the lute
for us?”

Nick looked up at the torches on the wall, drawing a
deep, long breath. When he looked down again his eyes
were dazzled and he could not see the Queen.

“What wilt thou have?” he heard her ask.

“Tet me go home,” said he.

There were red and green spots in the air. He tried to
count them, since he could see nothing else, and every-
thing was very still; but they all ran into one purple spot
which came and went like a firefiy’s glow, and in the middle
of the purple spot he saw the Queen’s face coming and
going.

“Surely, boy, that is an ill-considered speech,” said she,
“or thou dost deem us very poor, or most exceeding
stingy!” Nick hung his head, for the walls seemed tap-
estried with staring eyes. “Or else this home of thine
must be a very famous place.”

The maids of honour tittered. Further off somebody
laughed. Nick looked up, and squared his shoulders.

They had rubbed the cat the wrong way.

It is hard to be a stranger in a palace, young, country-
bred, and laughed at all at once; but down in Nick Att-
wood’s heart was a stubborn streak that all the flattery
on earth could not cajole nor ridicule efface. He might
be simple, shy, and slow, but what he loved he loved: that
much he knew; and when they laughed at him for loving