y Elizabeth
beckoned to her maidens; but they merely curtsied to their royal
mistress, without discontinuing their boisterous hilarity. Indeed, the
mumming hitherto had been more in dress than manners, so little
restraint had their outward disguise occasioned, or their behaviour
been altered thereby. The two late comers, however, produced a change.
It appeared that their business was to enact a play or cunning device
for the amusement of the company who, regarding them with a curious
eye, one by one left off their several sports to gaze upon the
strangers.

The rest were generally known to each other; but whispers and
inquiries now went round, from which it appeared that the new
visitants were strictly concealed, and their presence unexpected.

"Now, o' my faith," said Harry Cheetham, whose skill in dancing and
drollery had been conspicuous throughout the evening, "yon barbarians
be come from the Grand Turk, with his kerchief, recruiting for the
seraglio."

"Out upon thee!" said a jingling Morisco, enacted by young Hellawell
of Pike House; "the Grand Signior loveth not maidens such as ours for
his pavilion. They be too frosty to melt, even in Afric's sunny
clime." This was said with a malicious glance at Alice, whose
queen-like dignity and haughty bearing had kept many an ardent admirer
at bay through the evening.

"Sure the master of the feast hath withheld this precious delectation
until now," said Essex; "for they, doubtless, be of his providing."

"And give promise of more novel but less savoury entertainment," said
Hamer of Hamer. But Holt either knew them not, or his look of
surprise, not unmixed with curiosity and expectation, showed that he
was playing the masker too, without other disguise than his own proper
features--the kind hospitable face of an honest north-country squire,
ruddy with health and conviviality.

At the farther end of the hall the bride and her bride-maidens were
standing, with the bridegroom at her side, whispering soft gallantries
in her ear. The strangers, on their entrance, rendered neither token
nor obeisance, as courtesy required, to the bride and her train, but
followed Alice, who had joined her brother in the merry crowd, now
watching the motions of these unexpected visitants. They approached
with stately and solemn steps; and, without once deigning to notice
the rest of the company, the gaudy Moor bowed himself in a most
dignified _salaam_ before the queen. Alice, apparently w