"The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear,
The one in motley here
The other found out there."

SHAKESPEARE.


There lay the quiet Temple Gardens, on the Thames bank, cut out in
formal walks, with flowers growing in the beds of the homely kinds
beloved by the English. Musk roses, honeysuckle and virgin's bower,
climbed on the old grey walls; sops-in-wine, bluebottles, bachelor's
buttons, stars of Bethlehem and the like, filled the borders; May
thorns were in full sweet blossom; and near one another were the two
rose bushes, one damask and one white Provence, whence Somerset and
Warwick were said to have plucked their fatal badges; while on the
opposite side of a broad grass-plot was another bush, looked on as a
great curiosity of the best omen, where the roses were streaked with
alternate red and white, in honour, as it were, of the union of York
and Lancaster.

By this rose-tree stood the two young Birkenholts. Edmund Burgess
having, by his master's desire, shown them the way, and passed them
in by a word and sign from his master, then retired unseen to a
distance to mark what became of them, they having promised also to
return and report of themselves to Master Headley.

They stood together earnestly watching for the coming of the uncle,
feeling quite uncertain whether to expect a frail old broken man, or
to find themselves absolutely deluded, and made game of by the