“So! give us the letter--there! Pause not for thy knee, man; give us the letter!”--and tearing the frail band by which it was secured asunder, she was in a moment entirely engrossed, as it would seem, in its contents. Her countenance waxed paler and paler as she read; and the shadows of an autumn morning flit not more changefully across the landscape, as cloud after cloud is driven over the sun’s disk, than did the varying expressions of anxiety, doubt, and sorrow, chase one another from the speaking lineaments of Elizabeth. “Ha!” she exclaimed, after a long pause, “this must be looked to. See that our barge be manned forthwith, and tarry not for aught of state or ceremony. Thyself will go with us, and stop not thou to don thy newest-fashioned doublet: this is no matter that brooks ruffling!--’Sdeath, man! ’tis life or death! And now begone, sir! we lack our tirewoman’s service!” An hour had not elapsed before a barge--easily distinguished as one belonging to the royal household, by its decorations, and the garb of the rowers--shot through a side arch of Westminster bridge, and passed rapidly, under sail and oar, down the swift current of the river, now almost at ebb tide. It was not, however, the barge of state, in which the progresses of the sovereign were usually made; nor was it followed by the long train of vessels, freighted with ladies of the court, guards, and musicians, which were wont to follow in its wake. In the stern-sheets sat two persons: a man advanced in years, and remarkable for an air of nobility, which could not be disguised even by the thick boat-cloak he had wrapped about him, as much perhaps to afford protection against the eyes of the inquisitive as against the dense mists of the Thames; and a lady, whose tall person was folded in wrappings so voluminous as to defy the closest scrutiny. At a short distance in the rear, another boat came sweeping along, in the crew and passengers of which it would have required a penetrating glance to discover a dozen or two of the yeomen of the guard, in their undress liveries of gray and black, without either badge or cognizance, and their carbines concealed beneath a pile of cloaks.