paste jewels.

And, truth, it was no easy thing to tell them from the real affair, or
to guess the made from the maiden, so slender and so graceful were they
all, with their ruffs and their muffs and their feathered fans, and all
the airs and mincing graces of the daintiest young miss.

But old Nat Gyles would never have Nick Attwood play the girl. "The lad
is good enough for me just as he is," said he; and that was all there
was of it.

CHAPTER XXV

THE WANING OF THE YEAR

In September the Lord Admiral's company made a tour of the Midlands
during the great English fairing-time; but Carew did not go with them.
For, though still by name master-player with Henslowe and Alleyn, his
business with them had come to be but little more than pocketing his
share of the profits; and for the rest, nothing but to take Nick daily
to and from St. Paul's, and to draw his wages week by week.

Of those wages Nick saw never a penny: Carew took good care of that. Yet
he gave him everything that any boy could need, and bought him whatever
he fancied the instant he so much as expressed a wish for it: which, in
truth, was not much; for Nick had lived in only a country town, and knew
not many things to want.

But with money a-plenty thus coming so easily into his hands,--money for
dicing, for luxuries, for all his wild sports, money for Cicely, money
for keeps, money to play chuckie-stones with if he chose,--there was no
bridle to Gaston Carew's wild career. His boon companions were
spendthrifts and gamesters, dissolute fellows, of whom the least said
soonest mended; and with them he was brawling early and late, very often
all night long. And though money came in fast, he wasted it faster, so
that matters went from bad to worse. Duns came spying about his door,
and bailiffs hunted after him around the town with unpaid tradesmen's
bills. Yet still he laughed and clapped his hand upon his poniard in the
old bold way.

September faded away in wistful haze along the Hampstead hills. The
Admiral's men came riding back with keen October ringing at their heels,
and all the stalls were full of red-cheeked apples striped with emerald
and gold. November followed, with its nipping frost, and all St.
George's merry green fields turned brown and purple-gray. The old year
was waning fast.

The Queen's Day was but a poor holiday, in spite of the shut-up shops;
for it was grown so cold with sleet and rain that it was hard to get
about, the