and ended somewhat earlier than on former nights. The
theatre was to be cleared from the ground by daybreak, and the whole
company to proceed onward betimes in the morning. Another fair awaited
them in an adjoining county, and they had a long journey before them.

Gentleman Waife and his Juliet Araminta had gone to their lodgings over
the Cobbler's stall. Their rooms were homely enough, but had an air not
only of the comfortable, but the picturesque. The little sitting-room
was very old-fashioned,--panelled in wood that had once been painted
blue, with a quaint chimney-piece that reached to the ceiling. That
part of the house spoke of the time of Charles I., it might have been
tenanted by a religious Roundhead; and, framed-in over the low door,
there was a grim, faded portrait of a pinched-faced saturnine man, with
long lank hair, starched band, and a length of upper lip that betokened
relentless obstinacy of character, and might have curled in sullen glee
at the monarch's scaffold, or preached an interminable sermon to the
stout Protector. On a table, under the deep-sunk window, were neatly
arrayed a few sober-looking old books; you would find amongst them
Colley's "Astrology," Owen Feltham's "Resolves," Glanville "On Witches,"
the "Pilgrim's Progress," an early edition of "Paradise Lost," and
an old Bible; also two flower-pots of clay brightly reddened, and
containing stocks; also two small worsted rugs, on one of which rested a
carved cocoa-nut, on the other an egg-shaped ball of crystal,--that last
the pride and joy of the cobbler's visionary soul. A door left wide open
communicated with an inner room (very low was its ceiling), in which the
Bandit slept, if the severity of his persecutors permitted him to sleep.
In the corner of the sitting-room, near that door, was a small horsehair
sofa, which, by the aid of sheets and a needlework coverlid, did duty
for a bed, and was consigned to the Bandit's child. Here the tenderness
of the Cobbler's heart was visible, for over the coverlid were strewed
sprigs of lavender and leaves of vervain; the last, be it said, to
induce happy dreams, and scare away witchcraft and evil spirits. On
another table, near the fireplace, the child was busied in setting out
the tea-things for her grandfather. She had left in the property-room
of the theatre her robe of spangles and tinsel, and appeared now in
a simple frock. She had no longer the look of Titania, but that of a
lively, active, af