ith large roses made of serge ribbon. Two
or three had large loose boots of calf-leather, and almost every one was
begirt with a long rapier, which was suspended by leathern thongs, to a
plain belt of buff, or of black leather. One or two of the elder guests,
whose hair had been thinned by time, had their heads covered with a
skull-cap of black silk or velvet, which, being drawn down betwixt the
ears and the skull, and permitting no hair to escape, occasioned the
former to project in the ungraceful manner which may be remarked in old
pictures, and which procured for the Puritans the term of "prickeared
Roundheads," so unceremoniously applied to them by their contemporaries.

These worthies were ranged against the wall, each in his ancient
high-backed, long-legged chair; neither looking towards, nor apparently
discoursing with each other; but plunged in their own reflections, or
awaiting, like an assembly of Quakers, the quickening power of divine
inspiration.

Major Bridgenorth glided along this formal society with noiseless step,
and a composed severity of manner, resembling their own. He paused
before each in succession, and apparently communicated, as he passed,
the transactions of the evening, and the circumstances under which the
heir of Martindale Castle was now a guest at Moultrassie Hall. Each
seemed to stir at his brief detail, like a range of statues in an
enchanted hall, starting into something like life, as a talisman is
applied to them successively. Most of them, as they heard the narrative
of their host, cast upon Julian a look of curiosity, blended with
haughty scorn and the consciousness of spiritual superiority; though,
in one or two instances, the milder influences of compassion were
sufficiently visible.--Peveril would have undergone this gantlet of
eyes with more impatience, had not his own been for the time engaged in
following the motions of Alice, who glided through the apartment;
and only speaking very briefly, and in whispers, to one or two of the
company who addressed her, took her place beside a treble-hooded old
lady, the only female of the party, and addressed herself to her in such
earnest conversation, as might dispense with her raising her head, or
looking at any others in the company.

Her father put a question, to which she was obliged to return an
answer--"Where was Mistress Debbitch?"

"She has gone out," Alice replied, "early after sunset, to visit some
old acquaintances in the n