A silvery peal of merriment, that rippled like dancing water on the sonorous laughter of men's voices, dispelled Lee's too hastily formed conclusions. He glanced at the queen. Was it his fancy? or did a shadow momentarily darken the composure of her face as she lifted the gorgeously embroidered Indian silk hangings before which they now stood, and with a sign to Lee to keep close, stepped over the threshold of a low-ceiled but spacious chamber, whose wainscot of ebonized wood was enriched with paintings, and gilded carved reliefs of fruit and flowers entwining emblems of the chase. Here at all events was no lack of life; for the apartment was thronged with persons of both sexes, and all so engrossed in talk and merriment that they did not observe the entrance of the queen, until it was marked by the quick glance of one pair of eyes, which all the others had a trick of following, despite their seeming carelessness. The expression in the face of the owner of these eyes, who was seated near the fire which burned upon the hearth curiously built into one of the corners of the room, soon brought to their senses the merry company nearest the door; and, subsiding into a decorous gravity, they fell apart into a sort of double thickset hedgeway of feathers and furbelows reaching clear up to the stone-canopied fireplace, whose logs, burning brilliantly between the brazen dogs, cast their light upon the swarthy countenance of King Charles the Second, where he sat leaning carelessly back in a tall carved elbow-chair, attired in a hunting suit of darkest olive velvet. "Your majesty is astir betimes this morning," he said, rising a little hurriedly, and addressing the queen in tones which were not wanting in courtesy, if they might be in cordiality. "You have been to church?" he added, glancing at the little book in her hand. The queen bowed her head. "'Tis the feast of my patron saint, Catharine, your majesty will remember," she said. "Odds fish!" ejaculated Charles, vexedly cud gelling his brows, for he had in no wise remembered; and a flush of something like compunction crossed his swarthy features. "You have our hearty wishes, Catharine, for its many happy returns." A lightless smile curved the queen's lips as she acknowledged with a deep inclination of her head the chorus of voices endorsing this tardy felicitation. [Sidenote: The King's breakfast.] "And now," continued Charles with a gesture of his hand towards the breakfast tables, glittering in their costly confusion, while his eyes travelled rather regretfully down over his long buff riding-boots, "does not your majesty propose to stay and breakfast with us? It is true--"