“Admirable,” laughed Lyndsay.
“But don’t you want to hear our plots? You will see what you have escaped.”
“By all means,” replied Carington.
“Well, here is one. Mr. Sludge, the medium, calls up Shakspere to ask if he wrote Bacon’s essays.”
“If that is a specimen,” cried Carington, “I still less regret. The probability of Shakspere having been in Bacon’s pay as essayist strikes me as a delightful alternation to put into the Shakspere discussion.”
“It is a trifle tough,” said Anne. “I should like to ask for it at the next spiritual séance. I myself am strongly of the opinion that Queen Elizabeth wrote Shakspere’s plays. Just turn some of her correspondence with James into blank verse, and see how dramatic it is, and how humorous.”
“Repeat some of it for Mr. Carington, aunt,” said Rose. “It is really interesting.”
“Certainly, if I can recall it. Ah, here is one. I have made but little change in her words,—hardly any:
‘I praise God that you uphold ever a regal rule.
Since God then hath made kings,