entered the pavilion. He presently returned, and, beckoning the pair,
led then, through a passage or two and landed them in an ante-chamber,
where sat three more young gentlemen, feathered, furred, and embroidered
like pieces of fancy work, and deep in that instructive and edifying
branch of learning, dice.

"You can't see the Princess--it is too late," said one.

Another followed suit:

"She passed this way but now with her nurse. She is gone to bed, doll
and all. Deuce--ace again!"

Gerard prepared to retire. The seneschal, with an incredulous smile,
replied:

"The young man is here by the Countess's orders; be so good as conduct
him to her ladies."

On this a superb Adonis rose, with an injured look, and led Gerard into
a room where sat or lolloped eleven ladies, chattering like magpies.
Two, more industrious than the rest, were playing cat's-cradle with
fingers as nimble as their tongues. At the sight of a stranger all the
tongues stopped like one piece of complicated machinery, and all the
eyes turned on Gerard, as if the same string that checked the tongues
had turned the eyes on. Gerard was ill at ease before, but this battery
of eyes discountenanced him, and down went his eyes on the ground. Then
the cowards finding, like the hare who ran by the pond and the frogs
scuttled into the water, that there was a creature they could frighten,
giggled and enjoyed their prowess. Then a duenna said severely,