tation as your violence infers. I said but that the Countess was ill. And Countess, and lovely and beloved as she is, surely your lordship must hold her to be mortal? She may die, and your lordship's hand become once more your own. » Away! away!» said Leicester; «let me have no more of this. » Good night, my lord,» said Varney, seeming to understand this as a command to depart; but Leicester's voice interrupted his purpose. <«< Thou scapest me not thus, sir Fool,» said he; «I think thy knighthood has addled thy brains - Confess, thou hast talked of impossibilities, as of things which may come to pass. » My lord, long live your fair Countess,» said Varney; «but neither your love nor my good wishes can make her immortal. But God grant she live long to be happy herself, and to render you so. I see not but you may be King of England notwithstanding.» Nay, now, Varney, thou art stark-mad, said Leicester. " I would I were myself within the same nearness to a good estate of freehold,» said Varney. Have we not known in other countries, how a left-handed marriage might subsist betwixt persons of differing degree?ay, and be no hindrance to prevent the husband from conjoining himself afterwards with a more suitable partner?>> I have heard of such things in Germany, » said Leicester. " " Ay, and the most learned doctors in foreign universities justify the practice from the Old Testament,» said Varney, «And after all, where is the harm? The beautiful partner, whom you have chosen for true love, has your secret hours of relaxation and affection. Her fame is safeher conscience may slumber securely - You have wealth to provide royally for your issue, should Heaven bless you with offspring. Meanwhile you may give to Elizabeth ten times the leisure, and ten thousand times the affection, that ever Don Philip of Spain spared to her sister Mary; yet you know how she doated on him though so cold and neglectful. It requires but a close mouth and an open brow, and you keep your Eleanor and your fair Rosamond far enough separate. Leave me to build you a bower to which no jealous Queen shall find a clue.» Leicester was silent for a moment, then sighed, and said, «It is impossible. - Good night, Sir Richard Varney-yet stay-Can you guess what meant Tressilian by shewing himself in such careless guise before the Queen to-day?—to strike her tender heart, I should guess, with all the sympathies due to a lover, abandoned by his mistress, and abandoning himself. » Varney, smothering a sneering laugh, answered, «He believed Master Tressilian had no such matter in his head. » How!» said Leicester; «what mean'st thou? There is ever knavery in that laugh of thine, Varney.» «I only meant, my lord,» said Varney, « that Tressilian has taken the sure way to avoid heartbreaking. He hath had a companion—a female companion-a mistress-a sort of player's wife or sister, as I believe,—with him in Mervyn's Bower, where I quartered him for certain reasons of my own. » « A mistress! — mean'st thou a paramour. «Ay, my lord; who else waits for hours in a gentleman's chamber?»> By my faith, time and space fitting, this were a good tale to tell,» said Leicester. «<I ever distrusted those bookish, hypocritical, seeming-virtuous scholars. Well-Master Tressilian makes somewhat familiar with if I look it over, he is indebted to it for certain recollections. I would not harm him more than I can help. Keep eye on him, however, Varney.» my house I lodged him for that reason,» said Varney, in Mervyn's Tower, where he is under the eye of my very vigilant, if he were not also my very drunken servant, Michael Lambourne, whom I have told your Grace of. >> Grace!» said Leicester: « what mean'st thou by that epithet? » ་་ It came unawares, my lord; and yet it sounds so very natural, that I cannot recal it. » << It is thine own preferment that hath turned thy brain,» said Leicester, laughing; «new honours are as heady as new wine. » May your lordship soon have cause to say so from experience, » said Varney; and, wishing his patron good night, he withdrew. CHAPTER XXXIII. Here stands the victim-there the proud betrayer, The Woodsman. We are now to return to Mervyn's Bower, the apartment, or rather the prison, of the unfortunate Countess of Leicester, who for some time kept within bounds her uncertainty and her impatience. She was aware that, in the tumult of the day, there might be some delay ere her letter could be safely conveyed to the hands of Leicester, and that some time more might elapse ere he could extricate himself from the necessary attendance on Elizabeth, to come and visit her in her secret bower.. -I will not expect him,» she said, « till night - he cannot be absent from his royal guest, even to see me. He will, I know, come earlier if it be possible, but I will not expect him before night.» — And yet all the while she did expect him; and, while she tried to argue herself into a contrary belief, each hasty noise, of the hundred which she heard, sounded like the hurried step of Leicester on the staircase, hasting to fold her in his arms. The fatigue of body which Amy had lately undergone, with the agitation of mind natural to so cruel a state of uncertainty, began by degrees strongly to affect her nerves, and she almost feared her total inability to maintain the necessary self-command through the scenes which might lie before her. But, although spoiled by an overindulgent system of education, Amy had naturally a mind of great power, united with a frame which her share in her father's woodland exercises had rendered uncommonly healthy. She summoned to her aid such mental and bodily resources; and not unconscious how much the issue of her fate might depend on her own selfpossession, she prayed internally for strength of body and for mental fortitude, and resolved, at the same time, to yield to no nervous impulse which might weaken either. Yet when the great bell of the Castle, which was placed in Cæsar's Tower, at no great distance from that called Mervyn's, began to send its pealing clamour abroad, in signal of the arrival of the royal procession, the din was so painfully acute to ears rendered nervously sensitive by anxiety, that she could hardly forbear shrieking with anguish, in answer to every stunning clash of the relentless peal. - Shortly afterwards, when the small apartment was at once enlightened by the shower of artifi |