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A pouncet box, which ever and anon He gave his nose.

“Yes, she’s a jolly nuisance sometimes,” said Lord Artingale, but only to evoke a pitying smile from Mr Perry-Morton, who, in spite of the decidedly annoyed looks of Cynthia and her lover, leaned his arm upon the carriage-door, and began talking to Julia, making James Magnus look like Harry Hotspur must have appeared when the “certain lord” came to him, holding the “pouncet box, which ever and anon he gave his nose.”

As to the coming of the agate and the pouncet box, the minds of the boys were very hazy.

They knew that the pouncet box had been conveyed through the attendants of the Abbot of Beaulieu, but they were only sure that from that time the belief had prevailed with their mother that her brother was prospering in the house of the all-powerful Wolsey.

Gifts had come from time to time, passed through a succession of servants and officials of the king, such as a coral and silver rosary, a jewelled bodkin, an agate carved with Saint Catherine, an ivory pouncet box with a pierced gold coin as the lid; but no letter with them, as indeed Hal Randall had never been induced to learn to read or write.