de (not where it now does), giving entrance from a small
anteroom, in which the visitor now beholds the receptacle for old rolls
and papers. At the right, on entering, where now, if our memory mistake
not, is placed a press, stood the bed, quaintly carved, and with
hangings of damascene. At the farther end the deep recess which faced
the ancient door was fitted up as a kind of oratory. And there were to
be seen, besides the crucifix and the Mass-book, a profusion of small
vessels of gold and crystal, containing the relics, supposed or real, of
saint and martyr, treasures which the deposed king had collected in
his palmier days at a sum that, in the minds of his followers, had been
better bestowed on arms and war-steeds. A young man named Allerton--one
of the three gentlemen personally attached to Henry, to whom Edward had
permitted general access, and who, in fact, lodged in other apartments
of the Wakefield Tower, and might be said to share his captivity--was
seated before a table, and following the steps of his musing master,
with earnest and watchful eyes.

One of the small spaniels employed in springing game--for Henry, despite
his mildness, had been fond of all the sports of the field--lay curled
round on the floor, but started up, with a shrill bark, at the entrance
of the bearer of the model, while a starling in a cage by the window,
seemingly delighted at the disturbance, flapped his wings, and screamed
out, "Bad men! Bad world! Poor Henry!"

The captive paused at that cry, and a sad and patient smile of
inexpressible melancholy and sweetness hovered over his lips. Henry
still retained much of the personal comeliness he possessed at the time
when Margaret of Anjou, the theme of minstrel and minne singer, left
her native court of poets for the fatal throne of England. But beauty,
usually so popular and precious a gift to kings, was not in him of that
order which commanded the eye and moved the admiration of a turbulent
people and a haughty chivalry. The features, if regular, were small;
their expression meek and timid; the form, though tall, was not
firm-knit and muscular; the lower limbs were too thin, the body had too
much flesh, the delicate hands betrayed the sickly paleness of feeble
health; there was a dreamy vagueness in the clear soft blue eyes, and
a listless absence of all energy in the habitual bend, the slow, heavy,
sauntering tread,--all about that benevolent aspect, that soft voice,
that resigned m