Read it through once

The anecdote of Queen Elizabeth’s hair to which Miss Mitford alludes in the preceding letter, was one of which Sir William wrote in the previous April. It was to the effect that two ladies of his acquaintance had just paid a visit to Lord Pembroke’s family at Wilton, and whilst there one of them desired to see the _Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadie_ when, in perusing it, she discovered, between two of the leaves, a long lock of yellow hair, folded in an envelope in which was written, in Sir Philip Sidney’s handwriting, a declaration that the lock was “The faire Queen Elizabeth’s hair,” given him by her Majesty. In recounting this anecdote to Mrs. Hofland, Miss Mitford remarked that “the miraculous part of the story is, that at Wilton, amongst her own descendants, the _Arcadia_ should be so completely a dead letter. I suppose it was snugly ensconced between some of Sir Philip’s Sapphics or Dactylics, which are, to be sure, most unreadable things.”