Tall windows cut deep into the massive walls in one side of the room filled it with light. The massive stone sills were cushioned with velvet, and upon the cushions, musical instruments of the most precious wood and inlaid with gold, had been flung down, as if their owner had become weary of one amusement only to seek another. The boy arose from his easy leathern chair, and moving toward the window, ran his fingers thoughtfully over the strings of a lute that lay on the cushion, gazing idly through the glass at a court below, as he was thus occupied. After a moment he sauntered back to the chair, took up the volume of manuscript which he had left open on a small and curiously carved table standing near the window, and sinking once more to his seat he began to read again, but the book seemed to fatigue him at last, so allowing it to sink, still open, to his lap, the youth gradually sank to a fit of abstracted musing, and sat with his head resting on his hand, and his large eyes fixed dreamily on the face of a great ebony clock which stood opposite the window, its burnished face glittering through a whole bower of carved wood, and its huge pendulum swaying to and fro with a dull, sleepy motion, well calculated to continue the state of languid thoughtfulness into which the youth had fallen. As King Edward the Sixth—for the boy was no less a personage—sat musing, thus languid from ill health, and rendered somewhat more sad than usual from the manuscript and book which he had been reading, a page entered, and before he had time to speak, Lord Dudley, son of the reigning protector, followed him into the room. The young nobleman looked pale and much agitated, and Edward himself seemed a little startled by his abrupt entrance, for he was so little accustomed to being consulted on matters regarding the welfare of his kingdom, that any person thus nearly connected with the Lord Protector became an object of nervous dread to him; for such persons seldom interrupted his retirement except to counsel some change of residence, or dictate regarding his personal habits, which to a person naturally shy, and rendered sensitive by illness, was always a subject to be dreaded, but never opposed. It was therefore with something of dismay in his pale features, that Edward received his visiter. Dudley advanced close to the king’s chair, and sinking to one knee, pressed his lips reverently to the slender hand which the royal youth extended with habitual courtsey, though a languid and deprecatory smile, rather than one of welcome, stole over his lip. “My lord,” he said in a voice low and almost femininely sweet, “I am not well to-day, but if your good father recommends that we remove to Windsor, let the household be prepared; he is the best judge, though in his strong health and great energy he does sometimes tax our weakness a thought too far with these sudden removals.”