for justice on his servant? If he grants it, thou dost save
the risk of making thyself a powerful adversary, which will certainly
chance if, in the first instance, you accuse his master of the horse and
prime favourite before the Queen."

"My mind revolts from your counsel," said Tressilian. "I cannot brook
to plead my noble patron's cause the unhappy Amy's cause--before any one
save my lawful Sovereign. Leicester, thou wilt say, is noble. Be it so;
he is but a subject like ourselves, and I will not carry my plaint to
him, if I can do better. Still, I will think on what thou hast said; but
I must have your assistance to persuade the good Sir Hugh to make me his
commissioner and fiduciary in this matter, for it is in his name I must
speak, and not in my own. Since she is so far changed as to dote upon
this empty profligate courtier, he shall at least do her the justice
which is yet in his power."

"Better she died CAELEBS and SINE PROLE," said Mumblazen, with more
animation than he usually expressed, "than part, PER PALE, the noble
coat of Robsart with that of such a miscreant!"

"If it be your object, as I cannot question," said the clergyman, "to
save, as much as is yet possible, the credit of this unhappy young
woman, I repeat, you should apply, in the first instance, to the Earl
of Leicester. He is as absolute in his household as the Queen in her
kingdom, and if he expresses to Varney that such is his pleasure, her
honour will not stand so publicly committed."

"You are right, you are right!" said Tressilian eagerly, "and I thank
you for pointing out what I overlooked in my haste. I little thought
ever to have besought grace of Leicester; but I could kneel to the proud
Dudley, if doing so could remove one shade of shame from this unhappy
damsel. You will assist me then to procure the necessary powers from Sir
Hugh Robsart?"

The curate assured him of his assistance, and the herald nodded assent.

"You must hold yourselves also in readiness to testify, in case you are
called upon, the openhearted hospitality which our good patron exercised
towards this deceitful traitor, and the solicitude with which he
laboured to seduce his unhappy daughter."

"At first," said the clergyman, "she did not, as it seemed to me, much
affect his company; but latterly I saw them often together."

"SEIANT in the parlour," said Michael Mumblazen, "and PASSANT in the
garden."

"I once came on them by chance," said the priest, "in t