ain.

He stopped the lad as he was entering Nell's tiring-room, with an
exclamation. The boy returned.

"You gave Mistress Nell my note bidding her to supper?" he asked,
questioningly.

"I did, my lord," answered Dick.

"'Sheart, a madrigal worthy of Bacchus! She smiled delightedly?"
continued his lordship, in a jocular mood.

"No, my lord; quite serious."

His lordship's face changed slightly. "Read it eagerly?" he ventured,
where he might have commanded, further to draw out the lad.

"Yes, my lord," added Dick, respectfully, "after a time." The boy's lids
dropped to avoid revealing his amused recollection of the incident; and
his lordship's quick eye noted it.

"Good!" he exclaimed, with an assumed triumphant air. "She folded it
carefully and placed it in her bosom next her heart?"

"She threw it on the floor, my lord!" meekly answered Dick, hiding his
face in the flowers to avoid revealing disrespect.

"My _billet-doux_ upon the floor!" angrily exclaimed his lordship.
"Plague on't, she said something, made some answer, boy?" The diplomat
was growing earnest despite himself, as diplomats often do in the cause
of women.

Dick trembled.

"She said your dinners made amends for your company, my lord," he said,
meekly.

Buckingham's eyes snapped; but he was too clever to reveal his feelings
further to a call-boy, whom he dismissed with a wave of the hand. He
then swaggered to the table and complacently exclaimed: "The rogue!
Nelly, Nelly, your lips shall pay tribute for that. Rosy impudence!
Buckingham's dinners make amends for his company? Minx!" He threw
himself into a chair, filled with deep reflections of supper and wine,
wit and beauty, rather than state-craft.

Thus lost in selfish reflection, he did not observe, or, if he did,
cared not for, the frail figure and sweet face of one who cautiously
tiptoed into the greenroom. It was Orange Moll, whose sad countenance
and tattered garments betokened a sadder story. Her place was in the
pit, with her back to the stage, vending her oranges to artisans, girls
with vizards or foolish gallants. She had no right behind the scenes.

"I am 'most afraid to enter here without Nell," she thought,
faint-heartedly, as she glanced about the room and her eyes fell upon
the great Lord Buckingham.

"Oranges? Will you have my oranges? Only sixpence, my lord," she
ventured at length, then hesitatingly advanced and offered her wares;
but his lordship's thoughts were fa