and then seeming to evince hesitation and perplexity of thought, as if the perusal of the indentures had impressed him with some doubt, which he could not explain to himself, and was yet unwilling to communicate to the others.

""Tis strange," he at length muttered to himself, in a tone of voice just loud enough to be heard by those who stood near to him,

"Tis strange enough, that not one single individual of the many who have signed these papers should now be living.”

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What saith the Count of Flanders?" enquired the King, who was placed at too great a distance justly to distinguish the words, and who had hitherto sat by silently looking on, and apparently unconcerned as to what was spoken. "What was it you said, my Lord of Flanders?" he continued, address"Who is it that ing him more particularly, is not alive?-you spoke something to that effect."

Nay, my Liege, 'twas a mere nothing that

I said, it importeth not to the general question;

yet could not I avoid remarking, as a circumstance curious and worthy of note, that there should not be one of the many witnesses to these deeds who is now alive;-it well proves what mere passengers we be in this world, my Liege !"

"Hand me the papers again," said the King, addressing the Prothonotary standing at his side, “this escaped mine observation.— Why, yes! truly, as Count Louis saith, so it is, there is not one of all-let me see, how many are there!-one, two, threethere are no less than thirteen different signatures, and yet not one of the writers is now in existence; the last of them, Jean Seigneur of Abbeville, died, I think, about three or four months agone. Ah me! Time scythes us down manfully. Yet still, happily for the Count of Artois, though the writers are no more, their signatures remain !"

"Ay true, my Liege," replied Louis, "happily indeed the signatures remain,—but is the noble Count of Artois," he continued, partly addressing him of whom he spoke, "quite

certain that the friar of whom he received them was honest, and did not endeavour to play on his credulity? I should not—I speak it with diffidence-I should not-I grieve, sincerely grieve, to seem to lay a difficulty in the way, but the oath which I have sworn unto your Grace, forces me to utter all my thoughts, -and I should not, I confess, being, as I am, called upon to speak, say that this writing is that of Robert the Second, the present Count of Artois' grandsire."

Not the writing of Robert the Second!" exclaimed, almost with one voice, each person present, and the King in particular; "Whose then is it?" Philip continued, “I have often seen Count Robert's signature, and well as I may recollect, it doth most perfectly resemble this-whose else should it be?"

Truly, 'tis his, without doubt," Louis replied, nor said I that it was not so; I but asserted that it bore not so nice a resemblance as-considering the importance of the business now at stake-might be wished, to the old Count's habitual signature."

Robert had hitherto sat by in silence, he now rose to address him who had attempted to throw this impediment in the footpath of his hope.

"I know not justly," he said, "what meaning the Count of Flanders hath in saying this. Methinks I well should know that signature, it being of mine ancestor and I having many such in my possession; but the dispute may be most easily determined by procuring some of those writings which are publicly acknowledged to be his. By comparing them with one another, it will speedily be seen if such difference exist."

"It is well said," answered Philip, as turning to the Prothonotary, he commanded him to search the archives, and bring forth some of the papers which bore the late Count of Artois' signature, as also some of those signed by the witnesses of the deed.

CHAPTER XXV.

WHEN the Prothonotary returned with the several parchments he had been ordered to bring, the writings on them were compared with that of Robert's indenture.

All those of his grandsire's brought from the archives, seemed to have been written in a trembling and uncertain manner, as though the writer's hand had been guided by another, just as a child's is by a schoolmistress or a mother, when she first instructs him how to form his letters; and this, in fact, had been the case for the old Count had no pretensions to scholarship, and was therefore obliged, like many and indeed most others of the age in which he lived, to avail himself of the assistance