After a moderate interval, the court again met in the splendid gardens of the Palace; and it was while thus engaged that the Queen suddenly asked a lady, who was near to her both in place and favour, what had become of the young Squire Lack-Cloak.
The Lady Paget answered, "She had seen Master Raleigh but two or three minutes since standing at the window of a small pavilion or pleasure-house, which looked out on the Thames, and writing on the glass with a diamond ring." "That ring," said the Queen, "was a small token I gave him to make amends for his spoiled mantle.

Come, Paget, let us see what use he has made of it, for I can see through him already.

He is a marvellously sharp-witted spirit." They went to the spot, within sight of which, but at some distance, the young cavalier still lingered, as the fowler watches the net which he has set.

The Queen approached the window, on which Raleigh had used her gift to inscribe the following line:-- "Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall." The Queen smiled, read it twice over, once with deliberation to Lady Paget, and once again to herself.

"It is a pretty beginning," she said, after the consideration of a moment or two; "but methinks the muse hath deserted the young wit at the very outset of his task.