'What she's got on, my lassie? Eh, but I'm feart your yead, too, is
fu' o' gauds!--Wal, it's but nateral to females. She's aw in white
satin, my lassie,--an in her brown hair theer's pearls, an a blue
ribbon just howdin down t' little luve-locks on her forehead--an on
her saft neck theer's pearls again--not soa white, by a thoosand
mile, as her white skin--an t' lace fa's ower her proud shoothers,
an down her luvely arms--an she looks at me wi her angry eyes--Eh,
but she's a queen!' cried 'Lias, in a sudden outburst of
admiration. 'She hath been a persecutor o' th' saints--a varra
Jeezebel--the Lord hath put her to shame--but she's moor
sperrit--moor o't' blood o' kingship i' her little finger, nor
Charles theer in aw his body!'

And by a strange and crazy reversal of feeling, the old man sat in
a kind of ecstasy, enamoured of his own creation, looking into thin
air. As for Louie, during the description of the Queen's dress she
had drunk in every word with a greedy attention, her changing eyes
fixed on the speaker's face. When he stopped, however, she drew a
long breath.

'It's aw lees!' she said scornfully.

'Howd your tongue, Louie!' cried David, angrily.

But 'Lias took no notice. He was talking again very fast, but
incoherently. Hampden, Pym, Fairfax, Falkland--the great names
clattered past every now and then, like horsemen, through a maze of
words, but with no perceptible order or purpose. The phrases
concerning them came to nothing; and though there were apparently