beautiful lady at that mansion, though her name and quality were unknown to them, had already been dismissed over night.
Anthony Foster himself had in hand the rein of the Earl’s palfrey, a stout and able nag for the road; while his old serving-man held the bridle of the more showy and gallant steed which Richard Varney was to occupy in the character of master.
As the Earl approached, however, Varney advanced to hold his master’s bridle, and to prevent Foster from paying that duty to the Earl, which he probably considered as belonging to his own office. Foster scowled at an interference which seemed intended to prevent his paying his court to his patron, but gave place to Varney; and the Earl, mounting without farther observation, and forgetting that his assumed character of a domestic threw him into the rear of his supposed master, rode pensively out of the quadrangle, not without waving his hand repeatedly in answer to the signals which were made by the Countess with her kerchief, from the windows of her apartment.
While his stately form vanished under the dark archway which led out of the quadrangle, Varney muttered, “There goes fine policy—the servant before the master!” then as he disappeared, seized the moment to speak a word with Foster. “Thou look’st dark on me, Anthony,” he said, “as if I had deprived thee of a parting nod of my lord; but I have moved him to leave thee a better remembrance for thy faithful service. See here! a purse of as
