badge, and a friendly compliment to the grunting bear, he stepped
ashore, followed by his kinsman. Now, however, he paused a moment;
and a more thoughtful shade passed over his countenance, as, glancing
his eye carelessly aloft towards the standard of King Edward, he
caught sight of the casement in the neighbouring tower, of the very
room in which the sovereign of his youth, Henry the Sixth, was a
prisoner, almost within hearing of the revels of his successor; then,
with a quick stride, he hurried on through the vast court, and,
passing the White Tower, gained the royal lodge. Here, in the great
hall, he left his companion, amidst a group of squires and gentlemen,
to whom he formally presented the Nevile as his friend and kinsman,
and was ushered by the deputy-chamberlain (with an apology for the
absence of his chief, the Lord Hastings, who had gone abroad to fly
his falcon) into the small garden, where Edward was idling away the
interval between the noon and evening meals,--repasts to which already
the young king inclined with that intemperate zest and ardour which he
carried into all his pleasures, and which finally destroyed the
handsomest person and embruted one of the most vigorous intellects of
the age.

The garden, if bare of flowers, supplied their place by the various
and brilliant-coloured garbs of the living beauties assembled on its
straight walks and smooth sward. Under one of those graceful
cloisters, which were the taste of the day, and had been recently
built and gayly decorated, the earl was stopped in his path by a group
of ladies playing at closheys (ninepins) of ivory; [Narrative of Louis
of Bruges, Lord Grauthuse. Edited by Sir F. Madden, "Archaelogia,"
1836.] and one of these fair dames, who excelled the rest in her
skill, had just bowled down the central or crowned pin,--the king of
the closheys. This lady, no less a person than Elizabeth, the Queen