Another group of characters had now partly descended the staircase.  The first was a venerable and white-bearded patriarch who cautiously felt his way downward with a staff.  Treading hastily behind him, and stretching forth his gauntleted hand as if to grasp the old man’s shoulder, came a tall soldier-like figure equipped with a plumed cap of steel, a bright breastplate and a long sword, which rattled against the stairs.  Next was seen a stout man dressed in rich and courtly attire, but not of courtly demeanor; his gait had the swinging motion of a seaman’s walk, and, chancing to stumble on the staircase, he suddenly grew wrathful and was heard to mutter an oath.  He was followed by a noble-looking personage in a curled wig such as are represented in the portraits of Queen Anne’s time and earlier, and the breast of his coat was decorated with an embroidered star.  While advancing to the door he bowed to the right hand and to the left in a very gracious and insinuating style, but as he crossed the threshold, unlike the early Puritan governors, he seemed to wring his hands with sorrow.

“Prithee, play the part of a chorus, good Dr. Byles,” said Sir William Howe.  “What worthies are these?”

“If it please Your Excellency, they lived somewhat before my day,” answered the doctor; “but doubtless our friend the colonel has been hand and glove with them.”

“Their living faces I never looked upon,” said Colonel Joliffe, gravely; “although I have spoken face to face with many rulers of this land, and shall greet yet another with an old man’s blessing ere I die.  But we talk of these figures.  I take the venerable patriarch to be Bradstreet, the last of the Puritans, who was governor at ninety or thereabouts.  The next is Sir Edmund Andros, a tyrant, as any New England schoolboy will tell you, and therefore the people cast him down from his high seat into a dungeon.  Then comes Sir William Phipps, shepherd, cooper, sea-captain and governor.  May many of his countrymen rise as high from as low an origin!  Lastly, you saw the gracious earl of Bellamont, who ruled us under King William.”

“But what is the meaning of it all?” asked Lord Percy.

“Now, were I a rebel,” said Miss Joliffe, half aloud, “I might fancy that the ghosts of these ancient governors had been summoned to form the funeral procession of royal authority in New England.”

Several other figures were now seen at the turn of the staircase.  The one in advance had a thoughtful, anxious and somewhat crafty expression of face, and in spite of his loftiness of manner, which was evidently the result both of an ambitious spirit and of long continuance in high stations, he seemed not incapable of cringing to a greater than himself.  A few steps behind came an officer in a scarlet and embroidered uniform cut in a fashion old enough to have been worn by the duke of Marlborough.  His nose had a rubicund tinge, which, together with the twinkle of his eye,