Of the procession nothing was at present to be seen.  They had caught a glimpse of colour somewhere to the east of the Abbey as they turned off opposite Westminster Hall; and already the cry of the trumpets and the increasing noise of a crowd out of sight, told the listeners that they would not have long to wait.

Beneath, the crowd was arranging itself with admirable discipline, dispersing in long lines two or three deep against the walls, so as to leave a good space, and laughing good-humouredly at a couple of officious persons in livery who had suddenly made their appearance.  And then, as the country girl herself smiled down, an exclamation from Alice made her turn.

At first it was difficult to discern anything clearly in the stream whose head began to discharge itself round the curve from the left.  A row of brightly-coloured uniforms, moving four abreast, came first, visible above the tossing heads of horses.  Then followed a group of guards, whose steel caps passed suddenly into the sunlight that caught them from between the houses, and went again into shadow.

And then at last, she caught a glimpse of the carriage, followed by ladies on grey horses; and forgot all the rest.

This way and that she craned her head, gripping the oak post by which she leaned, unconscious of all except that she was to see her in whom England itself seemed to have been incarnated—­the woman who, as perhaps no other earthly sovereign in the world at that time, or before her, had her people in a grasp that was not one of merely regal power.  Even far away in Derbyshire—­even in the little country manor from which the girl came, the aroma of that tremendous presence penetrated—­of the woman whom men loved to hail as the Virgin Queen, even though they might question her virginity; the woman—­“our Eliza,” as the priest had named her just now—­who had made so shrewd an act of faith in her people that they had responded with an unreserved act of love.  It was this woman, then, whom she was about to see; the sister of Mary and Edward, the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, who had received her kingdom Catholic, and by her own mere might had chosen to make it Protestant; the woman whose anointed hands were already red in the blood of God’s servants, yet hands which men fainted as they kissed....

Then on a sudden, as Elizabeth lifted her head this side and that, the girl saw her.

She was sitting in a low carriage, raised on cushions, alone.  Four tall horses drew her at a slow trot:  the wheels of the carriage were deep in mud, since she had driven for an hour over the deep December roads; but this added rather to the splendour within.  But of this Marjorie remembered no more than an uncertain glimpse.  The air was thick with cries; from window after window waved hands; and, more than all, the loyalty was real, and filled the air like brave music.

There, then, she sat, smiling.

She was dressed in some splendid stuff; jewels sparkled beneath her throat.  Once a hand in an embroidered glove rose to wave an answer to the roar of salute; and, as the carriage came beneath, she raised her face.