showing generals and statesmen of the Ormond-Butlers, one even of the
great duke who fled to France; and there were pictures of the Varicks
before they mingled with us Irish--apple-cheeked Dutchmen, cadaverous
youths bearing match-locks, and one, an admiral, with star and sash
across his varnish-cracked corselet of blue steel, looking at me with
pale, smoky eyes.

Rusted suits of mail, and groups of weapons made into star shapes and
circles, points outward, were ranged between the heavy pictures, each
centred with a moth-ravaged stag's head, smothered in dust.

As I slowly paced the panelled wall, nose in air to observe these
neglected trophies, I came to another picture, hung all alone near the
wall where it passes under the staircase, and at first, for the
darkness, I could not see.

Imperceptibly the outlines of the shape grew in the gloom from a deep,
rich background, and I made out a figure of a youth all cased in armor
save for the helmet, which was borne in one smooth, blue-veined hand.

The face, too, began to assume form; rounded, delicate, crowned with a
mass of golden hair; and suddenly I perceived the eyes, and they seemed
to open sweetly, like violets in a dim wood.

"What Ormond is this?" I muttered, bewitched, yet sullen to see such
feminine roundness in any youth; and, with my sleeve of buckskin, I
rubbed the dust from the gilded plate set in the lower frame.

"The Maid-at-Arms," I read aloud.