But the girl's words were backed by Elizabeth's vanity, and the adroit flattery went home.
"Ah, my child," exclaimed her Majesty softly, as she leaned forward and kissed Dorothy's fair cheek.
Dorothy wept gently for a moment and familiarly rested her face upon the queen's breast.

Then she entwined her white arms about Elizabeth's neck and turned her glorious eyes up to the queen's face that her Majesty might behold their wondrous beauty and feel the flattery of the words she was about to utter.
"He said also," continued Dorothy, "that my eyes in some slight degree resembled your Majesty's, but he qualified his compliment by telling me--he did not exactly tell me that my eyes were not so large and brilliant as your Majesty's, for he was making love to me, and of course he would not have dared to say that my eyes were not the most perfect on earth; but he did say that--at least I know that he meant--that my eyes, while they resembled yours, were hardly so glorious, and--and I am very jealous of your Majesty.

John will be leaving me to worship at your feet." Elizabeth's eyes were good enough.

The French called them "marcassin," that is, wild boar's eyes.

They were little and sparkling; they were not luminous and large like Dorothy's, and the girl's flattery was rank.
Elizabeth, however, saw Dorothy's eyes and believed her words rather than the reply of the lying mirror, and her Majesty's heart was soft from the girl's kneading.