As Vipont led away Lady Jane, Redhall turned to conceal his sudden emotion. He faced a mirror and was startled at his own expression. Swollen like cords, the veins rose on his forehead like lines painted there. Jane had gone off without even bestowing on him a smile or a bow. She had quite forgotten his presence. He felt painfully that in her mind there would, doubtless, be a mighty gulf between himself and this gay young soldier, whose light spirit and chivalric heart were so entirely strangers to that burning jealousy and passionate desire of vengeance that struggled for supremacy with love. He passed a hand over his pale brow, as if to efface the emotion written there, and turned again with his wonted smile of coldness and placidity to address the person nearest him. This chanced to be no other than his gossip, the abbot of Kinloss, a peep-eyed little churchman, whose head and face, as they peered from his ample cope, so strongly resembled those of a rat looking forth from a hole, that no other description is required. The ambassador of the great Charles V., a richly-dressed cavalier in black, on whose breast shone the gold cross of Calatrava and the silver dove of Castile, and whose scarf of scarlet and gold sustained a long spada of the pure Toledo steel, now appeared on the Persian-carpeted floor, leading Madame de Montreuil, a gay little Frenchwoman in white brocade, which stuck out all round her nearly six feet in diameter; Roland and Lady Seton were their _vis-à-vis_. All eyes were upon them, for the dance was so completely new, that none in Scotland had ever seen it, and the expectations were great as the music which floated through the oak-carved screen of the gallery seemed divine. The right arm of each cavalier was placed round the waist of his lady, while her right hand rested in his left, and was pressed against his heart; in short, _la volta_, which had thus made its appearance in old Holyrood on the night of the 20th May, in the year of grace 1537, was nothing more than the vault step, now known, in modern times, as the waltz. There was a pause; the music again burst forth, rising and falling in regular time, and away went the dancers, round and round, in a succession of whirls, the little red-heeled and white velvet shoes of the ladies seeming to chase the buff boots and gold spurs of the gentlemen; round and round they went, rapidly, lightly, and gracefully. The tall Spanish ambassador and little Madame de Montreuil acquitted themselves to perfection; but Roland and Jane, to whom he had only given a few lessons during the preceding forenoon, perhaps less so; but none there observed it, and a burst of acclamation welcomed this graceful dance, which was now for the first time seen in Scotland, but which the prejudices of after years abolished till the beginning of the present century. "What thinkest thou of this new spring, father abbot?" said Redhall, with a cold smile in his keen eyes.