the office of chamberlain, or usher,
to the king-like earl, advanced to Marmaduke with a smile, and said,--

"My lord expects you, sir, and has appointed this time to receive you,
that you may not be held back from his presence by the crowds that crave
audience in the forenoon. Please to follow me!" This said, the gentleman
slowly preceded the visitor, now and then stopping to exchange a
friendly word with the various parties he passed in his progress; for
the urbanity which Warwick possessed himself, his policy inculcated as
a duty on all who served him. A small door at the other extremity of the
hall admitted into an anteroom, in which some half score pages, the sons
of knights and barons, were gathered round an old warrior, placed
at their head as a sort of tutor, to instruct them in all knightly
accomplishments; and beckoning forth one of these youths from the ring,
the earl's chamberlain said, with a profound reverence, "Will you be
pleased, my young lord, to conduct your cousin, Master Marmaduke Nevile,
to the earl's presence?" The young gentleman eyed Marmaduke with a
supercilious glance.

"Marry!" said he, pertly, "if a man born in the North were to feed all
his cousins, he would soon have a tail as long as my uncle, the stout
earl's. Come, sir cousin, this way." And without tarrying even to
give Nevile information of the name and quality of his new-found
relation,--who was no less than Lord Montagu's son, the sole male
heir to the honours of that mighty family, though now learning the
apprenticeship of chivalry amongst his uncle's pages,--the boy
passed before Marmaduke with a saunter, that, had they been in plain
Westmoreland, might have cost him a cuff from the stout hand of the
indignant elder cousin. He raised the tapestry at one end of the room,
and ascending a short flight of broad stairs, knocked gently on the
panels of an arched door sunk deep in the walls.

"Enter!" said a clear, loud voice, and the next moment Marmaduke was in
the presence of the King-maker.

He heard his guide pronounce his name, and saw him smile maliciously at
the momentary embarrassment the young man displayed, as the boy passed
by Marmaduke, and vanished. The Earl of Warwick was seated near a
door that opened upon an inner court, or rather garden, which gave
communication to the river. The chamber was painted in the style of
Henry III., with huge figures representing the battle of Hastings,
or rather, for there were many sep