which, dark, parted hair fell in curls down the temples over a white
ruff, fringed with costly lace, that encircled his neck. His eyes were
blue; his eye-brows highly arched; his nose large; beard covered the
upper lip and chin; and so far as an opinion could be formed, from his
sitting posture, he was tall and well-made. The expression of his
countenance was gentle, and there was an air of introspection and
abstraction about it as if he were much in the habit of communing with
his own thoughts. The upper part of his person, which only was
visible, the rest being hid by the table and depending cloth, was
clothed in a black coat or doublet, without ornament or even the
appearance of a button, and at his side he wore a rapier, evidently
more as a badge of his rank than for use.

Seated at his right hand, and below the platform, was a man a dozen
years at least his elder, whose stout look and fiery glances indicated
that if time had grizzled his thick and close cut hair, it had not
quenched the heat of his spirit. Like the gentleman first described,
he was dressed in sad-colored garments, differing but little from
them, except that instead of a ruff, he wore a plain white band,
falling upon his breast, cut somewhat like those worn by clergymen at
the present day, but longer, and passing round the neck and covering
the collar of the coat. Although the oldest of the company, he seemed
to have himself the least under control, continually moving in his
chair, drawing forward and pushing away the sheets of paper that lay
before him, and now and then darting an impatient glance at the person
in the arm-chair, from whom it would wander over his companions, and
then fasten on the door.

The third and last gentleman whom we think proper to describe, was a
man of about the age of the first, but utterly unlike him. His head