When Elvira's turn came, Clara perceived her colour was heightened, and that she trembled excessively, yet the Mummy's verses to her were as unmeaning as to the rest. Whilst this scene was passing, the King and Father Morris approached. The former stood silent and abstracted, apparently quite unconscious of the group before him; whilst Father Morris gazed at them intently, with a satirical sneer upon his countenance, as though in thorough contempt for such folly.
"How can you endure such mummery?" said he to Rosabella, after a short pause.
"Any thing for a change," said she, sighing. The father's dark eye glanced upon the King, and then upon Rosabella, as with a gloomy frown he stalked on. The Queen coloured, and hastily waving her hand to the minstrel, as a sign that he might depart, she turned away, and the disappointed ladies were reluctantly obliged to follow in her train. In a few minutes, however, a page returned with a chain and a purse of gold, which he gave the minstrels, and retired. Clara was upon the point of refusing her share of this bounty, but a
