'I would not have that boy to guard my door,' the Lady Cicely said to the Queen.
'Why, 'tis a good boy,' Katharine answered; 'and his sister loves me very well.'
'Get your Highness another,' the Lady Cicely persisted. 'I do not like his looks.'
The Queen gazed up from her writing to where the dark girl, her figure raked very much back in her stiff bodice, played daintily with the tassels of the curtain next the window.
'My Lady,' Katharine said, 'my Highness must get me a new maid in place of Margot Poins, that shall away into a nunnery. Is not that grief enough for poor Margot? Shall she think in truth that she has undone her father's house?'
'Then advance the springald to some post away from you,' the Lady Cicely said.
'Nay,' the Queen answered; 'he hath done nothing to merit advancement.'
She continued, with her head bent down over the writing on her knee, her lips moving a little as, sedulously, she drew large and plain letters with her pen.
'By Heaven,' the Lady Cicely said, 'you have too tickle a conscience to be a Queen of this world and day. In the time of Cæsar you might have lived more easily.'
The Queen looked up at her from her writing; her clear eyes were untroubled.