Blanche's words, it was evident, came very unwillingly.

"He hath shown me divers matters wherein the difference is but little,"

she contrived to say.

Sir Thomas groaned audibly.

"G.o.d help and pardon me, to have left my lamb thus unguarded!" he murmured to himself. "O Blanche, Blanche!"

"What is it, Father?" she said, looking up in some trepidation.

"Tell me, my daughter,--should it give thee very great sorrow, if thou wert never to see this young man again?"

"What, Father?--O Father!"

"My poor child!" he sighed. "My poor, straying, unguarded child!"

Blanche was almost frightened. Her father seemed to her to be coming out in entirely a new character. At this juncture Lady Enville laid down the comedy, and thought proper to interpose.

"Doth Don John love thee, Blanche?"

Blanche felt quite sure of that, and she intimated as much, but in a very low voice.

"And thou lovest him?"

With a good many knots and twists of the gold chain, Blanche confessed this also.

"Now really, Sir Thomas, what would you?" suggested his wife, re-opening the discussion. "Could there be a better establishing for the maiden than so? 'Twere easy to lay down rule, and win his promise, that he should not seek to disturb her faith in no wise. Many have done the like--"

"And suffered bitterly by reason thereof."

"Nay, now!--why so? You see the child's heart is set thereon. Be ruled by me, I pray you, and leave your fantastical objections, and go seek Don John. Make him to grant you oath, on the honour of a Spanish gentleman, that Blanche shall be allowed the free using of her own faith--and what more would you?"

"If thou send me to seek him, Orige, I shall measure swords with him."

Blanche uttered a little scream. Lady Enville laughed her soft, musical laugh--the first thing which had originally attracted her husband's fancy to her, eighteen years before.

"I marvel wherefore!" she said, laying down the play, and taking up her pomander--a ball of scented drugs, enclosed in a golden network, which hung from her girdle by a gold chain.

"Wherefore?" repeated Sir Thomas more warmly. "For plucking my fairest flower, when I had granted unto him but shelter in my garden-house!"

"He has not plucked it yet," said Lady Enville, handling the pomander delicately, so that too much scent should not escape at once.

"He hath done as ill," replied Sir Thomas shortly.

Lady Enville calmly inhaled the fragrance, as if nothing more serious than itself were on her mind. Blanche sat still, playing with her chain, but looking troubled and afraid, and casting furtive glances at her father, who was pacing slowly up and down the room.

"Orige," he said suddenly, "can Blanche make her ready to leave home?-- and how soon?"

Blanche looked up fearfully.

"What wis I, Sir Thomas?" languidly answered the lady. "I reckon she could be ready in a month or so. Where would you have her go?"

"A month! I mean to-night."

"To-night, Sir Thomas! 'Tis not possible. Why, she hath scantly a gown fit to show."

"She must go, nathless, Orige. And it shall be to the parsonage. They will do it, I know. And Clare must go with her."

"The parsonage!" said Lady Enville contemptuously. "Oh ay, she can go there any hour. They should scantly know whether she wear satin or grogram. Call for Clare, if you so desire it--she must see to the gear."

"Canst not thou, Orige?"

"I, Sir Thomas!--with my feeble health!"

And Lady Enville looked doubly languid as she let her head sink back among the cushions. Sir Thomas looked at her for a minute, sighed again, and then, opening the door, called out two or three names.

Barbara answered, and he bade her "Send hither Mistress Clare."

Clare was rather startled when she presented herself at the boudoir door. Blanche, she saw, was in trouble of some kind; Lady Enville looked annoyed, after her languid fashion; and the grave, sad look of Sir Thomas was an expression as new to Clare as it had been to the others.

"Clare," said her step-father, "I am about to entrust thee with a weighty matter. Are thy shoulders strong enough to bear such burden?"

"I will do my best, Father," answered Clare, whose eyes bespoke both sympathy and readiness for service.

"I think thou wilt, my good la.s.s. Go to, then:--choose thou, out of thine own and Blanche's gear, such matter as ye may need for a month or so. Have Barbara to aid thee. I would fain ye were hence ere supper-time, so haste all thou canst. I will go and speak with Master Tremayne, but I am well a.s.sured he shall receive you."

A month at the parsonage! How delightful!--thought Clare. Yet something by no means delightful had evidently led to it.

"Clare!" her mother called to her as she was leaving the room,--"Clare!

have a care thou put up Blanche's blue kersey. I would not have her in rags, even yonder; and that brown woolsey shall not be well for another month. And,--Blanche, child, go thou with Clare; see thou have ruffs enow; and take thy pearl chain withal."

Blanche was relieved by being told to accompany her sister. She had been afraid that she was about to be put in the dark closet like a naughty child, with no permission to exercise her own will about anything. And just now, the parsonage looked to her a dark closet indeed.

But Sir Thomas turned quickly on hearing this, with--"Orige, I desire Blanche to abide here. If there be aught she would have withal, she can tell Clare of it."

And, closing the door, he left the three together.

"Oh!--very well," said Lady Enville, rather crossly. Blanche sat down again.

"What shall I put for thee, Blanche?" asked Clare gently.

"What thou wilt," muttered Blanche sulkily.

"I will lay out what I think shall like thee best," was her sister's kind reply.

"I would like my green sleeves, [Note 1] and my tawny kirtle," said Blanche in a slightly mollified tone.

"Very well," replied Clare, and hastened away to execute her commission, calling Barbara as she went.

"What ado doth Sir Thomas make of this matter!" said Lady Enville, applying again to the pomander. "If he would have been ruled by me-- Blanche, child, hast any other edge of pearl?" [Note 2.]