survey me without laughing. With a bold effort, I flung open my door,
hurried down the stairs, and reached the hall. The first person I met
was a kind of pantry boy, a beast only lately emancipated from the
plough, and destined after a dozen years' training as a servant, again to
be turned back to his old employ for incapacity; he grinned horribly for
a minute, as I passed, and then in a half whisper said--

"Maester, I advise ye run for it; they're a waiting for ye with the
constables in the justice's room!" I gave him a look of contemptuous
superiority at which he grinned the more, and passed on.

Without stopping to consider where I was going, I opened the door of the
breakfast-parlour, and found myself in one plunge among a room full of
people. My first impulse was to retreat again; but so shocked was I, at
the very first thing that met my sight, that I was perfectly powerless to
do any thing. Among a considerable number of people who stood in small
groups round the breakfast-table, I discerned Jack Waller, habited in a
very accurate black frock and dark trowsers, supporting upon his arm
--shall I confess--no less a person than Mary Kamworth, who leaned on him
with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, and chatted gaily with him.
The buzz of conversation which filled the apartment when I entered,
ceased for a second of deep silence; and then followed a peal of laughter
so long and so vociferous, that in my momentary anger I prayed some one
might burst a blood-vessel, and frighten the rest. I put on a look of
indescribable indignation, and cast a glance of what I intended should be
most withering scorn on the assembly; but alas! my infernal harlequin
costume ruined the effect; and confound me, if they did not laugh the
louder. I turned from one to the other with the air of a man who marks
out victims for his future wrath; but with no better success; at last,
amid the continued mirth of the party, I made my way towards where Waller