"What dost thou?" she demanded.

"Oh! I--well--I know not what I did, Aunt Rachel. I was thinking, I reckon."

"And where were thy thoughts?" was the next searching query.

Blanche smelt at her flowers, coloured, laughed, and ended by saying lightly, "I scantly know, Aunt."

"Then the sooner thou callest them to order, the better. She must needs be an idle jade that wits not whereof she thinketh."

"Well, if you must needs know, Aunt Rachel," said Blanche, laughing again, and just a trifle saucily, "I thought about--being wed."

"Fie for shame!" was the prompt comment on this confession. "What hast thou to do withal, till thy father and mother bid thee?"

"Why, that is even what I thought, Aunt Rachel," said Blanche coolly, "and I would I had more to do withal. I would fain choose mine own servant." [Suitor.]

"Thou!--Poor babe!" was the contemptuous rejoinder.

"Well, Aunt Rachel, you wot a woman must be wed."

"That's a man's notion!" said Rachel in her severest manner. "Blanche, I do marvel greatly that thou hast not more womanfulness than so. A woman must be wed, quotha! Who saith it? Some selfish man, I warrant, that thought women were create into the world for none other cause but to be his serving-maids!"

"I am sure I know not wherefore we were create," muttered Blanche, loud enough for her sisters to hear but not her Aunt.

Rachel stopped her carding. She saw a first-rate opening for a lecture, and on her own special pet topic.

"Maidens, I would fain have you all list me heedfully. Prithee, take not up, none of you, with men's notions. To wit, that a woman must needs be wed, and that otherwise she is but half a woman, and the like foolery. Nay, verily; for when she is wed she is no more at all a woman, but only the half of a man, and is shorn of all her glory. Wit ye all what marriage truly meaneth? It is to be a slave, and serve a man at his beck, all the days of thy life. A maid is her own queen, and may do as it like her--"

"Would I might!" said Blanche under her breath.

"But a wife must needs search out her lord's pleasure."

"Or make him search out hers," boldly interposed Blanche.

"Child, lay thou down forthwith that foolish fantasy," returned Rachel with great solemnity. "So long time as that thing man is not sure of thee, he is the meekest mannered beast under the sun. He will promise thee all thy desire whatsoever. But once give leave unto thy finger to be rounded by that golden ring the which he holdeth out to thee, and where be all his promises? Marry, thou mayest whistle for them,--ay, and weep."

Rachel surely had no intention of bringing her lecture to a close so early; but at this point it was unfortunately--or, as Blanche thought, fortunately--interrupted. A girl of nineteen came noiselessly into the room, carrying a small basket of early cherries. She made no attempt to announce herself; she was too much at home at Enville Court to stand on ceremony. Coming up to Rachel, she stooped down and kissed her, setting the basket on a small table by her side.

"Ah, Lysken Barnevelt! Thou art welcome. What hast brought yonder, child?"

"Only cherries, Mistress Rachel:--our early white-hearts, which my Lady loveth, and Aunt Thekla sent me hither with the first ripe."

"Wherefore many thanks and hearty, to her and thee. Sit thee down, Lysken: thou art in good time for four-hours. Hast brought thy work?"

Lysken pulled out of her pocket a little roll of brown holland, which, when unrolled, proved to be a child's pinafore, destined for the help of some poverty-stricken mother; and in another minute she was seated at work like the rest. And while Lysken works, let us look at her.

A calm, still-faced girl is this, with smooth brown hair, dark eyes, a complexion nearly colourless, a voice low, clear, but seldom heard, and small delicate hands, at once quick and quiet. A girl that has nothing to say for herself,--is the verdict of most surface observers who see her: a girl who has nothing in her,--say a few who consider themselves penetrating judges of character. Nearly all think that the Reverend Robert Tremayne's partiality has outrun his judgment, for he says that his adopted daughter thinks more than is physically good for her. A girl who can never forget the siege of Leyden: never forget the dead mother, whose latest act was to push the last fragment of malt-cake towards her starving child; never forget the martyr-father burnt at Ghent by the Regent Alva, who boasted to his master, Philip of Spain, that during his short regency he had executed eighteen thousand persons,--of course, heretics. Quiet, thoughtful, silent,--how could Lysken Barnevelt be anything else?

A rap came at the door.

"Mistress Rachel, here's old Lot's wife. You'll happen come and see her?" inquired Jennet, putting only her head in at the door.

"I will come to the hall, Jennet."

Jennet's head nodded and retreated. Rachel followed her.

"How doth Aunt Rachel snub us maids!" said Blanche lazily, clasping her hands behind her head. "She never had no man to make suit unto her, so she accounteth we may pa.s.s us [do without] belike."

"Who told thee so much?" asked Margaret bluntly.

"I lacked no telling," rejoined Blanche. "But I say, maids!--whom were ye all fainest to wed?--What manner of man, I mean."

"I am bounden already," said Margaret calmly. "An' mine husband leave me but plenty of work to do, he may order him otherwise according to his liking."

"Work! thou art alway for work!" remonstrated ease-loving Blanche.

"For sure. What were men and women made for, if not work?"

"Nay, that Aunt Rachel asked of me, and I have not yet solute [solved]

the same.--Clare, what for thee?"

"I have no thought thereanent, Blanche. G.o.d will dispose of me."

"Why, so might a nun say.--Lysken, and thou?"

Lysken showed rather surprised eyes when she lifted her head. "What questions dost thou ask, Blanche! How wit I if I shall ever marry? I rather account nay."

"Ye be a pair of nuns, both of you!" said Blanche, laughing, yet in a slightly annoyed tone. "Now, Lucrece, thou art of the world, I am well a.s.sured. Answer me roundly,--not after the manner of these holy sisters,--whom wert thou fainest to wed?"

"A gentleman of high degree," returned Lucrece, readily.

"Say a king, while thou goest about it," suggested her eldest sister.

"Well, so much the better," was Lucrece's cool admission.

"So much the worse, to my thinking," said Margaret. "Would I by my good-will be a queen, and sit all day with my hands in my lap, a-toying with the virginals, and fluttering of my fan,--and my heaviest concernment whether I will wear on the morrow my white velvet gown guarded with sables, or my black satin furred with minever? By my troth, nay!"

"Is that thy fantasy of a queen, Meg?" asked Clare, laughing. "Truly, I had thought the poor lady should have heavier concernments than so."

"Well!" said Blanche, in a confidential whisper, "I am never like to be a queen; but I will show you one thing,--I would right dearly love to be presented in the Queen's Majesty's Court."

"Dear heart!--Presented, quotha!" exclaimed Margaret. "Prithee, take not me withal."

"Nay, I will take these holy sisters," said Blanche, merrily. "What say ye, Clare and Lysken?"

"I have no care to be in the Court, I thank thee," quietly replied Clare.

"I shall be, some day," observed Lysken, calmly, without lifting her head.