A little lady sat reading a small, vellum-bound book in the window-seat of one of the rooms of his Majesty's palace of Westminster. She was short and slender, and for a girl of fourteen very graceful. Her face was fair and now warm-flushed by the sun, her hair was a soft red-brown and her eyes that light shade of hazel, almost red, which so often goes with hair of reddish color. Her dress was of green velvet, with great gold-embroidered sleeves. At her waist was a girdle of gold. Her gown was cut to a point at the neck and about her throat was a little chain and a small heart-shaped locket. On her head was a coif of fine white lace bound with tiny bands of green and gold. The window behind her was open, and now and then the breeze blew wisps of hair about her forehead and sometimes threatened to turn the leaves of her book.
Presently a boy, a few years older than the girl, dressed in dark red doublet and hose, with a flat cap of the same color on his head, pushed aside the arras at the door and came into the room. He was very pale, and his big eyes, under high black arching eyebrows, looked very tired and moody. He had crossed to the window-seat before the girl knew he was in the room.
She rose quickly and made a low courtesy. The boy rested one knee upon the window-seat. "I'm glad you've come to court, Lady Jane. I wish you might stay some time."
"Your Majesty is very good to say so."
The boy bit his lip. "All day and half the night people are saying to me, 'Your Majesty is very good' to do this or that, usually something they've made me do. Can't we forget, cousin, for just a little time, that I'm Edward the Sixth, King of England and Ireland and so on, and just pretend I'm simple Edward Tudor and you Jane Grey?"
"An your Majesty wishes it," she said, smiling at the dark-eyed boy.
"I do." The boy sat down on the window-seat. "Oh, Jane, it's a stupid life I lead. Always my masters with lessons, my bearded counselors with scrolls and ink-horns. When I'm tired one man gives me physic, when I'm well again another sets me tasks. My head splits with sermons, and acts of state, and such like matters. I think they grudge me the hours I have to sleep. And among them all I've only one true friend, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, and him they let me see but now and then."
"I know," said the Lady Jane. "It seems there are so many things we must learn. At home my master, Messer Aylmer, is forever setting me this or that to study."
Lady Jane Grey and Roger Ascham