sovereign farewell.

As soon as the door had closed behind Maurice, Charles, turning to
Granvelle, remarked, "The Saxon cousin returned our clasp of the hand
some what coldly, but the means of rendering it warmer are ready."

"The Elector's hat," replied the Bishop of Arras. "I hope it will
prevent him from making our heads hot, as the Germans say, instead of
his own."

"If only our brains keep cool," replied the Emperor. "It is needful in
dealing with this young man."

"He knows his Machiavelli," added the statesman, "but I think the
Florentine did not write wholly in vain for us also."

"Scarcely," observed the Emperor, smiling, and then rang the little bell
to have his valet summon Dr. Mathys.

The leech had returned from his visit to Barbara, and feared that
the burning fever from which she was suffering might indicate the
commencement of inflammation of the lungs.

Charles started up and expressed the desire to be conveyed at once in
the litter to Prebrunn; but the physician declared that his Majesty's
visit would as certainly harm the feverish girl as going out in such
weather would increase the gout in his royal master's foot.

The monarch shrugged his shoulders, and seized the despatches and
letters which had arrived. The persons about him suffered severely from
his detestable mood, but the dull weather of this gloomy day appeared
also to have a bad effect upon the confessor De Soto, for his lofty brow
was scarcely less clouded than the sky. He did not allude to Barbara by
a single word, yet she was the cause of his depression.

After his conversation with the sovereign he had retired to his private
room, to devote himself to the philological studies which he pursued
during the greater portion of the day with equal zeal and success.
But he had scarcely begun to be absorbed in the new copy of the best
manuscript of Apuleius, which had readied him from Florence, and make
notes in the first Roman printed work of this author, when Cassian
interrupted him.

He had missed the servant in the morning. Now the fellow, always so
punctual when he had not gazed too deeply into the wine-cup, stood
before him in a singular plight, for he was completely drenched, and a
disagreeable odour of liquor exhaled from him. The flaxen hair, which
bristled around his head and hung over his broad, ugly face, gave him so
unkempt and imbecile an appearance that it was repulsive to the almoner,
and he harshly asked where he had