ot adorn your ladyship's tea-table with her bright
eyes?"

Her ladyship said, dryly, that Beatrix was not at home that morning;
my Lord Bishop was too busy with great affairs to trouble himself much
about the presence or absence of any lady, however beautiful.

We were yet at table when Dr. A---- came from the Palace with a look of
great alarm; the shocks the Queen had had the day before had acted on
her severely; he had been sent for, and had ordered her to be blooded.
The surgeon of Long Acre had come to cup the Queen, and her Majesty was
now more easy and breathed more freely. What made us start at the name
of Mr. Ayme? "Il faut etre aimable pour etre aime," says the merry
Doctor; Esmond pulled his sleeve, and bade him hush. It was to Ayme's
house, after his fatal duel, that my dear Lord Castlewood, Frank's
father, had been carried to die.

No second visit could be paid to the Queen on that day at any rate; and
when our guest above gave his signal that he was awake, the Doctor, the
Bishop, and Colonel Esmond waited upon the Prince's levee, and
brought him their news, cheerful or dubious. The Doctor had to go away
presently, but promised to keep the Prince constantly acquainted with
what was taking place at the Palace hard by. His counsel was, and the
Bishop's, that as soon as ever the Queen's malady took a favorable turn,
the Prince should be introduced to her bedside; the Council summoned;
the guard at Kensington and St. James's, of which two regiments were to
be entirely relied on, and one known not to be hostile, would declare
for the Prince, as the Queen would before the Lords of her Council,
designating him as the heir to her throne.

With locked doors, and Colonel Esmond acting as secretary, the Prince
and his Lordship of Rochester passed many hours of this day, composing
Proclamations and Addresses to the Country, to the Scots, to the Clergy,
to the People of London and England; announcing the arrival of the exile
descendant of three sovereigns, and his acknowledgment by his sister as
heir to the throne. Every safeguard for their liberties, the Church and
People could ask, was promised to them. The Bishop could answer for the
adhesion of very many prelates, who besought of their flocks and brother
ecclesiastics to recognize the sacred right of the future sovereign, and
to purge the country of the sin of rebellion.

During the composition of these papers, more messengers than one came
from the Palace regar