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From what I have narrated, then, it appears that the persons formerly called waites, or waits, were musical watchmen, the word implying obees. They were, in fact, minstrels, at first annexed to the king's court, who sounded the watch every night; and in towns paraded the streets during winter, to prevent theft, &c.

All the Waites between them had dropped away, out of the world, or into homes here and there of their own, and Arabel and Delia were left together in the square, low, gambrel-roofed house over on the other hill, where the town ran up small. Arabel Waite was an old dressmaker.

But to return to our subject; independent of the origin of the waits, or of the persons so called, as relates to the institution in England, which is, comparatively, of modern date, it appears there were peculiar to the Romans a description of individuals, who, in their offices and character, answered to our waits, and from whom there is no doubt the latter were derived; these, among the Romans, were called spondaulae, from which I conceive the waightes, or waites, of our ancient kings were borrowed.

The Town Waites whome I appointed to come and visitt us. Suc. 'Twas well donn: have you ere a good song? Tim. Yes, they have many. Suc. But are they bawdy? come, sir, I see by your simpring it is you that sings, but do not squeake like a French Organ-pipe nor make faces as if you were to sing a Dirge. Grimes. Well, sir, this is indifferent Musicke, trust my judgment. Crac.

In Rymers' Fardera there is an account of such an establishment, of the minstrels and waites who were in the service of the court of Edward IV., wherein is mentioned "a waite that nighteleye, from Michaelmas to Shrove Thorsday, pipeth the watch within this court;" "i. fewer times, in the somere nightes iij. times."

Thou knowest stately Geraldine, too stately I feare for me to doe homage to her statue or shrine, she it is that is come out of Italy to bewitch all the wise men of England, vpon Queene Katherine Dowager shee waites, that hath a dowrie of beautie sufficient to make her wooed of the greatest kings in christendome.

When Sylvia's father heard of her sailing the Butterfly to Fort Sumter he was greatly troubled. "If it should be discovered that my daughter had carried a message to Fort Sumter we would all be in danger; even the Waites would give us up," he declared. "What made you undertake such a thing, Sylvia?"