Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 22 (1831).djvu/329



"What packet, and from whence?" said the Queen eagerly.

"From whence, madam, I cannot guess; but I am so near to his person that I know he has ever since worn, suspended around his neck and next to his heart, that lock of hair which sustains a small golden jewel shaped like a heart. He speaks to it when alone--he parts not from it when he sleeps--no heathen ever worshipped an idol with such devotion."

"Thou art a prying knave to watch thy master so closely," said Elizabeth, blushing, but not with anger; "and a tattling knave to tell over again his fooleries.--What colour might the braid of hair be that thou pratest of?"

Varney replied, "A poet, madam, might call it a thread from the golden web wrought by Minerva; but to my thinking it was paler than even the purest gold--more like the last parting sunbeam of the softest day of spring."

"Why, you are a poet yourself, Master Varney," said the Queen, smiling. "But I have not genius quick enough to follow your rare metaphors. Look round these ladies--is there"--(she hesitated, and endeavoured to assume an air of great indifference)--"is there here, in this presence, any lady, the colour of whose hair reminds thee of that braid? Methinks, without prying into my Lord of Leicester's amorous secrets, I would fain know what kind of locks are like the thread of Minerva's web, or the--what was it?--the last rays of the May-