gure, neatly encased in Adair's
habit, which now consisted only of a jaunty shirt of white, gray
breeches, shoes and stockings.

"Marry, I would I were a fairy with a magic wand; I could befuddle men's
eyes easier," Nell lamented.

The King knocked again upon the door sharply.

"Patience, my liege," entreated Nell, drawing her gown close about her
and muttering with personal satisfaction: "There, there; that hides a
multitude of sins. The girdle, the girdle! Adair will not escape from
this--if we can but keep him quiet; the rogue has a woman's tongue, and
it will out, I fear."

She snatched up a mirror and arranged her hair as best she could in the
dim light, with the cries without resounding in her ears and with Moll
dancing anxiously about her.

"Down with the door," threatened the King, impatiently. "The ram; the
battering ram."

"I come, my love; I come," cried Nell, in agitation, fairly running to
the door to open it, but stopping aghast as her eye caught over her
shoulder the sad, telltale condition of the room.

"'Sdeath," she called in a stage-whisper to Moll; "under the couch with
Adair's coat! Patience, Sire," she besought in turn the King. "Help me,
Moll. How this lock has rusted--in the last few minutes. My sword!" she
continued breathlessly to Moll. "My boots! My hat! My cloak!"

Moll, in her efforts to make the room presentable, was rushing hither
and thither, first throwing Adair's coat beneath the couch as Nell
commanded and firing the other evidences of his guilty presence, one
behind one door and another behind another.

It was done.

Nell slipped the bolt and calmly took a stand in the centre of the room,
drawing her flowing gown close about Adair's person. She was quite
exhausted from the nervous strain, but her actress's art taught her the
way to hide it. Moll, panting for breath, across the room, feigned
composure as best she could.

The door opened and in strode the King and his followers.

"Welcome, royal comrades, welcome all!" said Nell, bowing graciously to
her untimely visitors.

CHAPTER XVI

_Ods-pitikins, my own reflection!_

Upon the fine face of the King, as he entered Nell's drawing-room, was
an expression of nervous bantering, not wholly unmixed with anxiety.

The slanderous Adair and his almost miraculous escape had not long
weighed upon his Majesty's careless nature.

As he had not met Adair until that night or even heard of him, his hea