return was more than due, and was awaited with some anxiety, as Lent was so near at hand, during which, according to the Roman Church, no marriage could take place. However, travelling in those days was very different to what it is in ours. The Channel could not be crossed in all weathers and all winds, and it was supposed that unfavourable breezes detained the messengers. Not for a moment was there any doubt that the answer, when it did come, would be in the affirmative. Permission had been asked merely as a matter of form. 

 Meanwhile, every effort was made to entertain the guests at Hereford Castle, and to prevent the time of their prolonged sojourn from hanging heavy on their hands. 

 In Domesday Book there figures a certain Adelina, a female juggler, as having received lands in the county of Hants, having previously enjoyed fee and salary from one Roger, a Norman earl. 

 The talents of this lady were in requisition, and, a heavy downpour of rain and sleet having rendered outdoor sports unpleasant, a large company of knights and ladies were watching her agile movements and ingenious deceptions; shouts and ripples of laughter testifying to their appreciation of her cleverness. 

 She performed at one end of the great banqueting-hall, and was clad in a scarlet dress made Eastern fashion, having a gold-broidered jacket of the shape we are accustomed to call Zouave, with loose trousers, and slippers turned up at the toes; she wore a turban upon her head, from beneath which her long black hair streamed unconfined to her waist, around which she wore a girdle of snake-skins; her bare arms were covered with bangles, and in her hand she held a wand on which a child's skull took the place of the Punch's head which adorns the staff of a Polichinello. 

 She had for assistants two brown-skinned, almond-eyed, white-toothed boys, evidently of Moorish origin, and active as the leopards, whose skins they wore, had been when alive in their native jungle; and the bowls, spheres, and other appliances she used were marked with cabalistic signs in the Arabian alphabet. Evidently, whether or no she was herself of Moorish blood, she had learned her trade from the jugglers of the East, whose skill therein still surpasses all others. 

 In those days the dark-skinned races were identified with Antichrist, and the entertainment therefore afforded that flavour of the forbidden which seems so necessary to the enjoyment of some folks. A gibbering monkey, which perched on her shoulder, 

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