238 AN AGREEABLE PROSPECT. 



turn us out another royal mistress and cam sjjosa : mine, my 

 lord, or yours, as may be." 



The companion to whom this speech was addressed, shrugged 

 his shoulders, looked cautiously around, and then returned, in 

 a tone almost inaudible : " I've been thinking whether we 

 might not dispense with any such personage at all." " AYhat \' : 

 exclaimed the other, starting, his large dull eyes almost spark- 

 ling with astonishment at the unheard-of notion ; " Do without 

 our queen ! our light our life our load-star ! Surely, my 

 lord, thou hast been quaffing too freely of the funereal nectar, 

 and art beside thyself. Our very existence depends upon 

 the smiles of our royal mistress." The disloyal and bold 

 suggestor of a new idea answered only by a low sound, 

 resembling in meaning a contemptuous laugh ; and the audible 

 sneer was echoed, though in a shriller key, by one of the aged 

 females who had been listening to the discourse, in which she 

 now ventured to take a part. " In good sooth, master mine," 

 said she, "thou hast said right ; thy own existence, and that 

 of all thy brethren, did verily depend on the pleasure of her 

 majesty deceased; and as her majesty-in-making will be 

 finished exactly after the same pattern, why on her pleasure 

 they will depend also; the which gracious pleasure, or (what 

 amounts to the same) gracious permission will be, that your 

 throats are cut (every one of you) before the summer is over." 

 "How! how! what say you, mistress?" exclaimed both the 

 speakers, and several other of their lounging lordships, who 



