My lord spoke as a man who feels an old burden chafe his shoulder. As for the son, he was looking beyond his father at the opposite wall. He recalled the girl as he had seen her in the garden. She had baffled him. Here was the explanation. “It is well that she should never know,” he said, gravely; “she has enough to haunt her—without that.” My lord had finished his wine and fruit. He rose from the table, and, catching sight of himself in a Venetian mirror on the wall, turned away with a slight frown. “You had better amuse yourself choosing some of my clothes,” he said. “I have business to-night with Pembroke, and I may be late. Richards will give you the keys. We are much of a size, Jack, though you are shorter in the shanks. Thank the Lord for one mercy, I have not put on too much fat.” By the light of a couple of candles in silver sconces John Gore amused himself in my lord’s bedroom, with the boy Sparkin to act as a self-constituted judge of fashions. Mr. Richards, who had accompanied them, indulged in a few polite and irrelevant directions, and then departed, as though he found the boy’s company incompatible with his own. Every corner of the bedroom soon had its selection of satins, camlets, and cloths, for Sparkin appeared possessed by an exuberant desire to see and handle everything. My lord’s wardrobe was the wardrobe of a gentleman who had a fancy for every color and for every combination of shades. His stockings were to be numbered by the dozen, and Sparkin, half hidden in a chest, baled the stuffs out as though he were baling water out of a boat. “Easy, there, you young hound. What manner of tangle do you think you are making?” The boy turned a hot and happy face to him. “Take your choice, captain. What would some of the Greenwich girls give for a picking! How does crushed strawberry please you?” John Gore was standing in front of a mirror trying on a coat. “That’s a sweet thing, captain. Just look at the lace. Here’s a chest we haven’t opened yet.” “Leave it alone, then. You have tumbled enough shirts to give Tom Richards work for a week.” Sparkin had been fumbling with the keys. He found the right one as John Gore spoke, and lifted the chest’s lid as though there was no disobedience in looking. “What have you got there?” Supremely tempted, Sparkin had fished out a periwig and clapped it on his head. He pulled it off again just as briskly, merely remarking that “the thing tickled.” A second dive of the arm brought up a black cloak edged with gold cord and lined with purple silk. “Bring that here, boy.” Sparkin obeyed, and John Gore swung it over his shoulders. “Just your color, captain,” said the boy, seriously. “Thanks for a valuable opinion. Well, put it aside with the shirts and stockings I have chosen. The devil take you, but what a fearsome mess you have made!”