“Perhaps,” slyly remarked the granddaughter of Colonel Joliffe, whose high spirit had been stung by many taunts against New England—­“perhaps we are to have a masque of allegorical figures—­Victory with trophies from Lexington and Bunker Hill, Plenty with her overflowing horn to typify the present abundance in this good town, and Glory with a wreath for His Excellency’s brow.”

Sir William Howe smiled at words which he would have answered with one of his darkest frowns had they been uttered by lips that wore a beard.  He was spared the necessity of a retort by a singular interruption.  A sound of music was heard without the house, as if proceeding from a full band of military instruments stationed in the street, playing, not such a festal strain as was suited to the occasion, but a slow funeral-march.  The drums appeared to be muffled, and the trumpets poured forth a wailing breath which at once hushed the merriment of the auditors, filling all with wonder and some with apprehension.  The idea occurred to many that either the funeral procession of some great personage had halted in front of the province-house, or that a corpse in a velvet-covered and gorgeously-decorated coffin was about to be borne from the portal.  After listening a moment, Sir William Howe called in a stern voice to the leader of the musicians, who had hitherto enlivened the entertainment with gay and lightsome melodies.  The man was drum-major to one of the British regiments.

“Dighton,” demanded the general, “what means this foolery?  Bid your band silence that dead march, or, by my word, they shall have sufficient cause for their lugubrious strains.  Silence it, sirrah!”

“Please, Your Honor,” answered the drum-major, whose rubicund visage had lost all its color, “the fault is none of mine.  I and my band are all here together, and I question whether there be a man of us that could play that march without book.  I never heard it but once before, and that was at the funeral of his late Majesty, King George II.”

“Well, well!” said Sir William Howe, recovering his composure; “it is the prelude to some masquerading antic.  Let it pass.”

A figure now presented itself, but among the many fantastic masks that were dispersed through the apartments none could tell precisely from whence it came.  It was a man in an old-fashioned dress of black serge and having the aspect of a steward or principal domestic in the household of a nobleman or great English landholder.  This figure advanced to the outer door of the mansion, and, throwing both its leaves wide open, withdrew a little to one side and looked back toward the grand staircase, as if expecting some person to descend.  At the same time, the music in the street sounded a loud and doleful summons.  The eyes of Sir William Howe and his guests being directed to the staircase, there appeared on the uppermost landing-place, that was discernible from the bottom, several personages