ered the room was a tall, athletic looking old woman, in her night
dress, wearing a remarkably heavy pair of shoes. She placed her candle
upon the table and walked deliberately up to where the young girl was
sitting. Seeing her she started back in astonishment.

"Are you here, Margaret?" she exclaimed; "beshrew me, I thought thee
asleep two good hours ago, instead of throwing thy company away upon a
young man, and a stranger. Away with you, mistress, to your bed! You
are unworthy to be called your father's daughter."

"Nay, good dame, be not so hard with pretty Margaret," said Charles,
as he saw the young girl leaving the room with her handkerchief to her
eyes.

"Out upon thee, sirrah, for a knave!" retorted the old woman; "I'll
see directly who thou art, sir jack-a-napes. To thy chamber, Miss, and
thank Heaven for thy father's misfortune, which prevented his being
here this night."

When the girl had gone, she took up the light, and approaching the
king, scrutinized him closely from head to foot.

"Well, mother," he said, as he suffered her to proceed with the
examination, "find you aught here to fear?"

She was gazing at the moment at his face, and she started back as she
spoke.

"Much, much to fear!" she replied, "for I see here the features of a
king! When we find the wolf in the sheepfold we may slay him, but who
dare approach the 'lion!'

The king was filled with amazement at being recognised; but without
suffering his surprise to be evident, he endeavored to ridicule the
assertion.

"True, dame," he remarked, "they call me the king of good fellows; but
as for a lion, the comparison is somewhat strained; it would be more
apt with a longer-eared animal, for suffering myself to be trapped
thus sillily."

The old woman seized his hand, and after pointing to the royal signet,
dropped it.

"Charles Stuart, King of England, thou canst not deceive me!"

"Faith," said the king, laughing, "methinks this is another astrologer
in petticoats!"

"And is it to his king," exclaimed the old woman, reproachfully, "that
the unfortunate Colonel Boynton is indebted for a base attempt upon
his daughter's honor, at the very moment when he himself is the tenant
of a prison for having, by his loyalty, impoverished himself! Is this
the reward for the blood he has shed, and the honorable wounds he has
received in fighting your battles, and for hastening to offer you his
last penny in a foreign land, even when his own fami