carnal companie,
And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.

BYRON.

With the next morning the humour of the Duke of Rothsay was changed.
He complained, indeed, of pain and fever, but they rather seemed to
stimulate than to overwhelm him. He was familiar with Ramorny, and
though he said nothing on the subject of the preceding night, it was
plain he remembered what he desired to obliterate from the memory of his
followers--the ill humour he had then displayed. He was civil to every
one, and jested with Ramorny on the subject of Catharine's arrival.

"How surprised will the pretty prude be at seeing herself in a family
of men, when she expects to be admitted amongst the hoods and pinners
of Dame Marjory's waiting women! Thou hast not many of the tender sex in
thy household, I take it, Ramorny?"

"Faith, none except the minstrel wench, but a household drudge or two
whom we may not dispense with. By the way, she is anxiously inquiring
after the mistress your Highness promised to prefer her to. Shall I
dismiss her, to hunt for her new mistress at leisure?"

"By no means, she will serve to amuse Catharine. And, hark you, were it
not well to receive that coy jillet with something of a mumming?"

"How mean you, my lord?"

"Thou art dull, man. We will not disappoint her, since she expects
to find the Duchess of Rothsay: I will be Duke and Duchess in my own
person."

"Still I do not comprehend."

"No one so dull as a wit," said the Prince, "when he does not hit off
the scent at once. My Duchess, as they call her, has been in as great a
hurry to run away from Falkland as I to come hither. We have both left
our apparel behind. There is as much female trumpery in the wardrobe
adjoining to my sleeping room as would equip a whole carnival. Look you,
I will play Dame Marjory, disposed on this day bed here with a mourning
veil and a wreath of willow, to show my forsaken plight; thou, John,
wilt look starch and stiff enough for her Galwegian maid of honour,
the Countess Hermigild; and Dwining shall present the old Hecate, her
nurse--only she hath more beard on her upper lip than Dwining on his
whole face, and skull to boot. He should have the commodity of a beard
to set her forth conformably. Get thy kitchen drudges, and what passable
pages thou hast with thee, to make my women of the bedroom. Hearest
thou? about it instantly."

Ramorny hasted into the anteroom, and told Dwining the Prince's device.

"Do