What raven croaks in England on May Day eve ?" Cecil knelt before her, and gave into her hand a paper.
"What record runs here ?" she asked querulously.

"A prayer of your faithful Lords and Commons that your Majesty will grant speech with their chosen deputies to lay before your Majesty a cause they have at heart." "Touching of-- ?" darkly asked the Queen.
"The deputies wait even now--will not your Majesty receive them?
They have come humbly, and will go hence as humbly on the instant, if the hour is ill chosen." Immediately Elizabeth's humour changed.

A look of passion swept across her face, but her eyes lighted, and her lips smiled proudly.

She avoided troubles by every means, fought off by subtleties the issues which she must meet; but when the inevitable hour came none knew so well to meet it as though it were a dearest friend, no matter what the danger, how great the stake.
"They are here at my door, these good servants of the State--shall they be kept dangling ?" she said loudly.

"Though it were time for prayers and God's mercy yet should they speak with me, have my counsel, or my hand upon the sacred parchment of the State.