st all command of their countenances at
the gravity with which he invited them to afford him the luxury of
scratching his hairy snout. Mowbray had also found a fitting
representative for Puck in a queer-looking, small-eyed boy of the
Aultoun of St. Ronan's, with large ears projecting from his head like
turrets from a Gothic building. This exotic animal personified the merry
and mocking spirit of Hobgoblin with considerable power, so that the
group bore some resemblance to the well-known and exquisite delineation
of Puck by Sir Joshua, in the select collection of the Bard of Memory.
It was, however, the ruin of the St. Ronan's Robin Goodfellow, who did
no good afterwards,--"gaed an ill gate," as Meg Dods said, and "took on"
with a party of strolling players.

The entertainment closed with a grand parade of all the characters that
had appeared, during which Mowbray concluded that the young lord
himself, unremarked, might have time enough to examine the outward form,
at least, of his sister Clara, whom, in the pride of his heart, he could
not help considering superior in beauty, dressed as she now was, with
every advantage of art, even to the brilliant Amazon, Lady Binks. It is
true, Mowbray was not a man to give preference to the intellectual
expression of poor Clara's features over the sultana-like beauty of the
haughty dame, which promised to an admirer all the vicissitudes that can
be expressed by a countenance lovely in every change, and changing as
often as an ardent and impetuous disposition, unused to constraint, and
despising admonition, should please to dictate. Yet, to do him justice,
though his preference was perhaps dictated more by fraternal partiality
than by purity of taste, he certainly, on the present occasion, felt the
full extent of Clara's superiority; and there was a proud smile on his
lip, as, at the conclusion of the divertisement, he asked the Earl how
he had been pleased. The rest of the performers had separated, and the
young lord remained on the stage, employed in disembarrassing himself of
his awkward visor, when Mowbray put this question, to which, though
general in terms, he naturally gave a particular meaning.

"I could wear my ass's head for ever," he said, "on condition my eyes
were to be so delightfully employed as they have been during the last
scene.--Mowbray, your sister is an angel!"

"Have a care that that headpiece of yours has not perverted your taste,
my lord," said Mowbray. "Bu