He thought that the shade of Queen Annabella stood by his bedside, and demanded the youth whom she had placed under his charge, simple, virtuous, gay, and innocent.
"Thou hast rendered him reckless, dissolute, and vicious," said the shade of pallid Majesty.

"Yet I thank thee, John of Ramorny, ungrateful to me, false to thy word, and treacherous to my hopes.

Thy hate shall counteract the evil which thy friendship has done to him.

And well do I hope that, now thou art no longer his counsellor, a bitter penance on earth may purchase my ill fated child pardon and acceptance in a better world." Ramorny stretched out his arms after his benefactress, and endeavoured to express contrition and excuse; but the countenance of the apparition became darker and sterner, till it was no longer that of the late Queen, but presented the gloomy and haughty aspect of the Black Douglas; then the timid and sorrowful face of King Robert, who seemed to mourn over the approaching dissolution of his royal house; and then a group of fantastic features, partly hideous, partly ludicrous, which moped, and chattered, and twisted themselves into unnatural and extravagant forms, as if ridiculing his endeavour to obtain an exact idea of their lineaments..