"Then don't meddle with it," laughed Mr. Usher, as he looked far over Mr. Flippet's head into the gallery's middle distance; "but mind your manners, and stand out of the way. And you too young gentleman," he went on addressing Lee. "Don't you see who's a coming?" He emphasized these words with such a sudden lunge of his staff of office at the objects nearest to him, which happened to be the unfortunate Flippet's legs, that the lackey shifted aside in blind terror, and fell stumbling against Lee. Unprepared for the shock, Lawrence in his turn must, but for a dexterous twist which regulated his balance, have lain sprawling his length at the very feet of a lady, advancing towards the curtained way, accompanied by a group of some half dozen more ladies, who remained standing a pace or two in the rear of her, as she came to a forced halt. [Sidenote: The Queen.] Fortunately these awkward man[oe]uvres brought about no worse mishap than the brushing to the floor of a little book which the foremost lady had held lightly in her hand. Crimsoning with shame to the roots of his dark curls, Lawrence stooped down, and picking up the book was about to present it to the lady, when he felt the skirts of his coat pulled from behind with such violence, that a second and still more deplorable misadventure must inevitably have occurred, had not the lady averted it with a peremptory, but still gracious gesture of her small ivory-white hand. "Nay, gentlemen, you are unmannerly," she said, in tones of gentle remonstrance, and whose accents sounded strangely in the ears of the Hertfordshire farmer. "What is the meaning of this?" she went on, her dark eyes kindling with indignation and surprise, as they traversed the circle of ladies and gallants whom the disturbance had drawn to the spot "What is the meaning of it?" reiterated she, receiving the book from Lee's hands with a gracious inclination of her head. The onlookers simpered vacuously at each other. "Your majesty--" began the Usher. The Queen! In spite of the strange heart-beating sensation which then seized Lawrence, his curiosity, or more correctly interest, was still sufficiently his master, to permit of his bearing away in his memory the enduring picture of Catharine of Braganza, the not too happy wife of the merry careless Charles the Second. [Sidenote: Court ladies.]