regularity.

"Make way for the drum!" ran along the avenues, as though he were
passing through a numerous array of guards and soldiery. At length he
was safely deposited in a spacious hall used as a guard-room; where his
conductors delivered him to Captain Ogle, the officer in waiting that
morning upon her ladyship. Being informed she was at prayers, for, as we
are told, "her first care was the service of God, which in sermons and
solemn prayers she daily saw performed," Gideon lifted up his hands and
said--

"Their new moons and their fasts are an abomination." He then desired to
be conducted near the fire, for the double purpose of drying his
threadbare red coat, and relieving his extreme length by a change of
position.

He had not waited long ere the signal was given for an audience. Still
blindfolded, he was led by a circuitous route into a little wainscotted
chamber lighted by a single bay-window. Here the bandage was taken from
his eyes, and when the dimness had a little subsided, he beheld that
heroic lady for the first time whom he had often compared, in no very
moderate terms, to Jezebel, and many other names equally appropriate. A
very different person she appeared from what his heated and morbid fancy
had suggested. Indeed, if she had been the personification of all evil,
with a demon's foot and a fiend's visage, he had been less surprised
than to find her with the outward form and attributes of humanity.

She was sitting with the children, before a narrow table covered with
papers. She wore a black habit, with a white kerchief on her head, and a
long Flanders veil of rich open work. This she threw back, and Gideon
beheld a countenance not at all either commanding or heroic, but one to
which smiles and good-nature would have been most congenial, though a
shade of anxiety was now thrown over the natural expression of her
features. Her eye seemed to have forgotten its bland and benevolent
aspect, and was fixed sharply upon him. For a moment his spiritual
pride was daunted, and that natural and inherent principle, not extinct
though often dormant,--a deference to superiority, whether of intellect
or station--rendered him for a while mute and inoffensive. It is even
said that he made a sort of half-conscious obeisance; but his mind
misgiving him during the offence, which smote him on the sudden as an
act of homage and idolatrous veneration, he breathed out a very audible
prayer.

"Pardon thy servant in th