e lodging of my fair cousin, Mistress Anne Boleyn,
Captain Bouchier?" inquired the Earl of Surrey, with a significant
smile.

"Assuredly not, my lord!" replied the other, smiling in his turn. "She
will be lodged as royally as if she were Queen of England. Indeed, the
queen's own apartments are assigned her."

"It is well," rejoined Surrey. "And you have also provided for the
reception of the Pope's legate, Cardinal Campeggio?"

Bouchier bowed.

"And for Cardinal Wolsey?" pursued the other.

The captain bowed again.

"To save your lordship the necessity of asking any further questions,"
he said, "I may state briefly that I have done all as if you had done it
yourself."

"Be a little more particular, captain, I pray you," said Surrey.

"Willingly, my lord," replied Bouchier. "In your lord ship's name, then,
as vice-chamberlain, in which character I presented myself, I summoned
together the dean and canons of the College of St. George, the usher of
the black rod, the governor of the alms-knights, and the whole of the
officers of the household, and acquainted them, in a set speech-which, I
flatter myself, was quite equal to any that your lordship, with all your
poetical talents, could have delivered--that the king's highness, being
at Hampton Court with the two cardinals, Wolsey and Campeggio, debating
the matter of divorce from his queen, Catherine of Arragon, proposes to
hold the grand feast of the most noble order of the Garter at this his
castle of Windsor, on Saint George's Day--that is to say, the day after
to-morrow--and that it is therefore his majesty's sovereign pleasure
that the Chapel of St. George, in the said castle, be set forth and
adorned with its richest furniture; that the high altar be hung with
arras representing the patron saint of the order on horseback, and
garnished with the costliest images and ornaments in gold and silver;
that the pulpit be covered with crimson damask, inwrought with
flowers-de-luces of gold, portcullises, and roses; that the royal stall
be canopied with a rich cloth of state, with a haut-pas beneath it of
a foot high; that the stalls of the knights companions be decked with
cloth of tissue, with their scutcheons set at the back; and that all be
ready at the hour of tierce-hora tertia vespertina, as appointed by his
majesty's own statute--at which time the eve of the feast shall be held
to commence."

"Take breath, captain," laughed the earl.

"I have no need," repli