e
heed was paid to his garrulity by the young couple. They let him talk
on, feigning to listen, but in reality noting scarce a word he said. As
they entered the park of Theobalds, however, they found their tongues,
and Gillian became loud in her admiration of the beautiful glades that
opened before them, and of the dappled denizens of the wood that tripped
lightsomely across the sward, or hurried towards the thickets. The park,
indeed, looked beautiful with its fine oaks in their freshly-opened
foliage of the tenderest green, its numerous spreading beeches, its
scattered thorns white with blossom, and the young fern just springing
from the seed in the brakes. No wonder Gillian was delighted. Dick was
equally enchanted, and regretted he was not like King James, master of a
great park, that he might hunt within it at his pleasure. Of course, if
he had been king, Gillian would naturally have been his queen, and have
hunted with him. Old Greenford, too, admired the scene, and could not
but admit that the park was improved, though he uttered something like a
groan as he thought that Queen Elizabeth and the Lord Treasurer could be
seen in it no longer.

After riding for a couple of miles along a road which led them over
beautifully undulating ground, affording glimpses of every variety of
forest scenery--sometimes plunging them into the depths of groves, where
the path was covered by over-arching trees--sometimes crossing the open
chace, studded by single aged oaks of the largest size--sometimes,
skirting the margin of a pool, fringed with flags, reeds, and bulrushes
for the protection of the water-fowl--now passing the large heronry, to
the strict preservation of which James attached the utmost importance;
they at length approached the long avenue leading to the palace. At its
entrance they found Jocelyn waiting for them.

The young man, who cared not for their company, had ridden on in
advance. The strange events of the morning gave him plenty of material
for reflection, and he longed to commune with himself. Accordingly,
when the others stopped at Edmonton, he quitted them, promising to halt
till they came up, before entering the precincts of the palace. If his
ride was not so agreeable as their's, it at least enabled him to regain,
in some degree, his composure of mind, which had been greatly disturbed
by his abrupt parting with Aveline. Her image was constantly before him,
and refusing to be dismissed, connected itself