y brow,
shaded by a profusion of light brown ringlets, a long, straight, and
finely-formed nose, a full, sensitive, and well-chiselled mouth, and
a pointed chin. His eyes were large, dark, and somewhat melancholy in
expression, and his complexion possessed that rich clear brown tint
constantly met with in Italy or Spain, though but seldom seen in
a native of our own colder clime. His dress was rich, but sombre,
consisting of a doublet of black satin, worked with threads of Venetian
gold; hose of the same material, and similarly embroidered; a shirt
curiously wrought with black silk, and fastened at the collar with black
enamelled clasps; a cloak of black velvet, passmented with gold, and
lined with crimson satin; a flat black velvet cap, set with pearls and
goldsmith's work, and adorned with a short white plume; and black velvet
buskins. His arms were rapier and dagger, both having gilt and graven
handles, and sheaths of black velvet.

As he moved along, the sound of voices chanting vespers arose from Saint
George's Chapel; and while he paused to listen to the solemn strains,
a door, in that part of the castle used as the king's privy lodgings,
opened, and a person advanced towards him. The new-comer had broad,
brown, martial-looking features, darkened still more by a thick
coal-black beard, clipped short in the fashion of the time, and a pair
of enormous moustachios. He was accoutred in a habergeon, which gleamed
from beneath the folds of a russet-coloured mantle, and wore a steel cap
in lieu of a bonnet on his head, while a long sword dangled from beneath
his cloak. When within a few paces of the youth, whose back was towards
him, and who did not hear his approach, he announced himself by a loud
cough, that proved the excellence of his lungs, and made the old walls
ring again, startling the jackdaws roosting in the battlements.

"What! composing a vesper hymn, my lord of Surrey?" he cried with a
laugh, as the other hastily thrust the tablets, which he had hitherto
held in his hand, into his bosom. "You will rival Master Skelton, the
poet laureate, and your friend Sir Thomas Wyat, too, ere long. But
will it please your lord-ship to quit for a moment the society of the
celestial Nine, and descend to earth, while I inform you that, acting
as your representative, I have given all needful directions for his
majesty's reception to-morrow?"

"You have not failed, I trust, to give orders to the groom of the
chambers for th