soul I'll pour into thee.

The song might have been intended in compliment to the fair Julia, for
so I found his partner was called, or it might not; she, however, was
certainly unconscious of any such application, for she never looked at
the singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the floor. Her face was
suffused, it is true, with a beautiful blush, and there was a gentle
heaving of the bosom, but all that was doubtless caused by the exercise
of the dance; indeed, so great was her indifference, that she was
amusing herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hothouse
flowers, and by the time the song was concluded, the nosegay lay in
ruins on the floor.

The party now broke up for the night with the kind-hearted old custom of
shaking hands. As I passed through the hall, on the way to my chamber,
the dying embers of the _Yule-clog_ still sent forth a dusky glow; and
had it not been the season when "no spirit dares stir abroad," I should
have been half tempted to steal from my room at midnight, and peep
whether the fairies might not be at their revels about the hearth.

[Illustration: "Indeed, so great was her indifference, that she was
amusing herself with plucking to pieces a choice bouquet of hot-house
flowers."--PAGE 72.]

My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponderous furniture
of which might have been fabricated in the days of the giants. The room
was panelled with cornices of heavy carved-work, in which flowers and
grotesque faces were strangely intermingled; and a row of black-looking
portraits stared mournfully at me from the walls. The bed was of rich
though faded damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in a niche opposite
a bow-window. I had scarcely got into bed when a strain of music seemed
to break forth in the air just below the window. I listened, and found
it proceeded from a band, which I concluded to be the waits from some
neighbouring village. They went round the house, playing under the
windows. I drew aside the curtains, to hear them more distinctly. The
moonbeams fell through the upper part of the casement, partially
lighting up the antiquated apartment. The sounds, as they receded,
became more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord with quiet and
moonlight. I listened and listened--they became more and more tender
and remote, and, as they gradually died away, my head sank upon the
pillow and I fell asleep.

[Illustration]

FOOTNOTES:

[B] Peacham's Complete Gentleman, 1622