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46 gaiety and richness of apparel, to mark his disdain of the Roundheads, whose custom was the reverse; and his bright auburn hair had been carefully trained in long love-locks. Now he wore a sad-coloured cloak and a dark-grey suit, and his hair clipped close to the head, still, however, showing a most unorthodox tendency to curl; but his whole attire and bearing was in strict conformity with the severe and grave fashion of the period.

"Nay, I will increase your wonder," said he, laughing at their evident surprise; "I come from Whitehall, and trust, my dear father, you will approve of my conversion as much as if it had been your own work instead of Sir Harry Vane's, with whom I came over from Paris. He desired me to greet you well in the name of the Lord," added he, in a snuffling tone.

"I understand this disguise, for such I cannot but consider it, as little as I approve of this mockery."

"Nay, dearest father," returned the youth, caressingly, "blame me not that I have seen the folly of leaguing with your enemies, and that a little experience has taught me the necessity of conforming to general usage; and surely to my partial parent I may indulge in the relief of a laugh at the solemn sanctity which I know he