adroit and ready Shaftesbury. Fascinating, yet insincere, he was the fair-spoken Belial of his century's politics, and had an utter contempt for such visionaries as Algernon Sidney, whose purity seemed to him Quixotic.

But, leaving for a moment these statesmen, let us describe the hall into which Sir Robert ushered his guests, and on whose ponderous table, thanks to Monsieur Ortolan, a dainty luncheon was already smoking.

It was a lofty room, its ceiling covered with square panelling, with coats-of-arms painted at the intersections. The floor was paved, but covered here and there with mats, and, where the king sat in Sir Robert's state chair, with a small Turkey carpet. The walls were panelled with oak, and studded with stags' horns, foxes' brushes, and a few pikes and old matchlocks. At the end stood a perch, on which rested four hawks, two long and two short winged, adapted for the striking either heron or partridge; and over the

vast fireplace hung a tapestry of fox-skins. In one corner of the room, on a heap of straw,

was a litter of puppies;

bunch of hunting poles.

in another stood a From the chimney

piece dangled a string of hawk's bells, and a long twisted whip; while on a shelf above lay an old felt hat full of pheasants' eggs, and on the window ledge were a pack of old cards and a pipe, besides a book of Chronicles and a work on farriery. A low door at one end of the hall opened into the chapel, a spot now seldom used, but the pulpit of which served Sir Robert as a convenient cupboard in which to keep a cold chine of beef and a pasty for a "snack" between whiles.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HOT LUNCHEON.

SIR Robert would have served as cup-bearer, but the king insisted on his taking his usual seat at the table; while he himself sat beside Mabel, who, with many blushes, had just been introduced to his Majesty.

""Tis a good wench," said Sir Robert, fondly pinching her arm; "à better daughter than her old father deserves; and though she knows few of the modish airs, she can play 'Sellenger's Round' indifferent well on the old spinet-ay, that she can."

"As beautiful and virtuous as her father is

honest and brave, I venture to swear," said Charles, with an admiring smile that won Sir Robert's heart.

In five minutes more Sir Robert was quite at ease, stirring round his wine with a sprig of rosemary.

"Is the day yet fixed for my brother Tony's coronation ?" said Charles, breaking suddenly into the conversation that at the other end of the table was now swelling into a loud mur"Has Little Sincerity been measured for his crown, or will the old one he had made for Poland serve his turn?"

mur.

"I have not heard, your Majesty," said Godolphin; "but I met the old mole on the Oxford road to-day, at the head of the Green Ribbons, all lettered 'No slavery, no Popery,' and shouting, I'll wager a crown, as if they were going to fling down the walls of a new Jericho."

"And yet, odsfish, if Tony hasn't more divinity than all my bishops, and more law than all my lawyers. No one sees quicker into a heart than Cooper; yet he must needs

use the stirrups of religion to get up into the saddle of power. Killigrew says he is now devoting himself to prove that I am engaged with the Jesuits of St. Omer in a plan to cut my own throat."

"How well, your Majesty, old Hudibras sketches him!" said Sir Robert, pouring some syrup of gilly-flowers into his sack:

"'Mong these there was a politician,

With more heads than a beast in vision;

So politic as if one eye

Upon the other were a spy.'

"Have you heard of the last joke of the Tory wits at the 'Rose'?" said Godolphin. "No, nor of their first either," said Charles; "but what is it? Nothing more, I hope, of drubbing poor Dryden in Rose Alley, or reacting D'Urfey's terrible duel with Mr. Bell at Epsom, when they fought for one hour by the clock at the 'Well' as to whether a note in the last Gavotte was B flat or G sharp, and ending with one of the combatants receiving a cut on the lute-finger, giving him such exquisite torture that he fainted."