committed no offence. Pardon my impertinence, but were it not well that you shouldTM rub your eyes, and exclaim with the jealouspated man in the play Hum!-ha! is this a vision?is this a dream?-do I sleep? Awake, awake! Master Ford-I will now take the gallant-he is at my house-he cannot escape me-'tis impossible he should-he cannot creep into a half-penny purse, nor into a pepper-box, but lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places.' Basta! enough of this-I will myself search for your Majesty's rival beneath this disguising periwig!"

Turning Hetty suddenly round towards the King, she twitched off her wig, and resumed, as her luxuriant locks fell about her shoulders"There, Sir, you may see by these modest blushes, and by the palpitation of her bosom, threatening to break the buttons of her vest, that the Imogine who was kneeling at my feet, is, in spite of her alarming garb, a poor, timid, harmless maiden !"

"I understand not this mummery; who is

she? what is she ?" inquired James, still speaking sternly, though his ordinary complexion had returned, and his countenance was now not more saturnine than usual.

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Speak for yourself," said the Countess to Hetty-" you implored me to present you to the King-there is his Majesty-tell your own story."

Believing that the fate of her beloved Walter might depend upon her conduct and self-possession at the present moment, Hetty summoned all her energies to her aid, threw herself at the feet of the Sovereign, stated in a hurried manner the cause and the nature of Walter's offence, with the sentence it had drawn down upon him, and in a passionate appeal, such only as a loving woman could pronounce, implored a remission of the fatal decree.

"Your Majesty now perceives," said the Countess, "that there is nothing more criminal in the whole affair, no more important discovery to be made, than that a very small fraction of my Lord Sunderland's private-life

treacheries has come to light: his public treasons remain yet to be developed !"

This speech was luckily thrown in, and the moment was altogether propitious to Hetty's suit; for recent events, in spite of James's infatuation, had begun to force open his eyes to the perfidious proceedings of his minister. By the arrival of Skelton, the ambassador in Holland, it was found that the various letters he had officially written, positively announcing the destination of the Prince's armament, had been all suppressed, and carefully kept from the King's knowledge. Other revelations had filled the royal mind with grave misgivings as to the honesty of the man upon whom he had lavished his favour and confidence; and as instances of ingratitude and perfidy multiplied around him, he was the better pleased to find that his suspicions of the Countess's fidelity were unfounded. "Who is this Captain Colyton ?" he enquired, speaking in a still more gracious mood than he had hitherto used.

"The same," replied the Countess, "whom

Sunderland, that he might the better inveigle and ensnare him, presented at a late drawingroom, when your Majesty condescended to converse with him, and led him to expect that you would serve him, should occasion offer. Your Majesty's promises have ever been held sacred and inviolable, an honourable fact which not even your bitterest enemies can deny."

"I made no promise; even if I had, it would have been abrogated by misconduct in the party. This is a grave, almost an irremissible offence; at the present moment it is peculiarly necessary to enforce a strict observance of discipline in the army."

"It is still more necessary not to alienate that army and extend disaffection by sacrificing a gentleman of whom they may well be proud, to such a low and worthless character as Lord Sunderland's creature, whom they cannot but view as a disgrace to their profession. Clemency," continued the Countess, who knew that the King, like other men, loved to be most highly lauded for those virtues in which he was most deficient," clemency is not only your

Majesty's noblest perogative, but the one which you have ever shown to be the dearest to your heart. In Monmouth's infamous affair, did you not pardon thousands who had forfeited both life and estate ? My Lord Brandon, Lord Stamford, Mr. Hampden, and many others, after being convicted of High Treason, have received their lives at your hand; and will your Majesty, who can thus generously forgive traitors, rebels, and enemies, suffer a brave and loyal soldier to be shot, because in a hasty moment he struck a bully of Lord Sunderland's ?"

"I do not remember to have seen the report of this Court-martial. Has that too been suppressed, like Skelton's letters ?”

"This active and undaunted girl, who travels faster than most of the royal couriers, has outstripped its arrival. She left Somersetshire as soon as it was agreed upon, travelled incessantly both day and night, and has hardly been an hour in London."

"It will probably then be laid before me to-morrow." After pausing for a few seconds, as if considering how he should word his pro