"'Tis nought, in very deed, Aunt--of any moment."

"Nought of any moment to thee?"

"Nay, to--Oh, pray you, ask me not, Aunt Rachel! It makes no matter."

"Ha! When a maid saith that,--a maid of thy years, Clare,--I know metely well what she signifieth. Thou art a good child. Get thee up-stairs and pin on thy carnation knots."

Clare went up the wide hall staircase with a slow, tired step, and without making any answer beyond a faint attempt at a smile.

"Ha!" said Rachel again, to herself. "Providence doth provide all things. Methinks, though, at times, 'tis by the means of men and women, the which He maketh into little providences. I could find it in mine heart to fall to yonder game but now. Only I will bide quiet, methinks, till to-morrow. Well-a-day! if yon grandmother Eve of ours had ne'er ate yon apple! Yet Master Tremayne will have it that I did eat it mine own self. Had I so done, Adam might have whistled for a quarter. The blind, stumbling moles men are! Set a pearl and a pebble afore them, and my new shoes to an old shoeing-horn, but they shall pick up the pebble, and courtesy unto you for your grace. And set your mind on a lad that you do count to have more sense than the rest, and beshrew me if he show you not in fair colours ere the week be out that he is as great a dunce as any. I reckon Jack shall be the next. Well, well!-- let the world wag. 'Twill all be o'er an hundred years hence. They shall be doing it o'er again by then. Howbeit, 'tis ill work to weep o'er spilt milk."

Sir Piers Feversham and his nephew arrived late that evening. The former was a little older than Sir Thomas Enville, and had mixed more in general society;--a talkative, good-natured man, full of anecdote; and Blanche at least found him very entertaining.

John Feversham, the nephew, was almost the antipodes of his uncle. He was not handsome, but there was an open, honest look in his grey eyes which bore the impress of sincerity. All his movements were slow and deliberate, his manners very quiet and calm, his speech grave and sedate. Nothing in the shape of repartee could be expected from him; and with him Blanche was fairly disgusted.

"As sober as a judge, and as heavy as a leaden seal!" said that young lady,--who had been his next neighbour at the supper-table,--when she was giving in her report to Clare while they were undressing. "He hath but an owl's eye for beauty, of whatever fashion. Thou mindest how fair was the sunset this even? Lo' thou, he could see nought but a deal of water in the sea, and divers coloured clouds in the sky. Stupid old companion!"

"And prithee, Mistress Blanche, who ever did see aught in the sea saving a cruel great parcel of water?"

"Good lack, Bab!--thou art as ill as he. Clare, what seest thou in the sea?"

Clare tried to bring her thoughts down to the subject.

"I scantly know, Blanche. 'Tis rarely beautiful, in some ways. Yet it soundeth to me alway very sorrowful."

"Ay so, Mistress Clare!" returned Barbara. "It may belike to thee, poor sweet heart, whose father was killed thereon,--and to me, that had a brother which died far away on the Spanish main."

"I suppose," answered Clare sighing, "matters sound unto us according as we are disposed."

"Marry, and if so, some folks' voices should sound mighty discordant,"

retorted Barbara.

Blanche was soon asleep; but there was little sleep for Clare that night. Nor was there much for Rachel. Since Margaret's marriage, Lucrece had shared her aunt's chamber; for it would have been thought preposterous in the Elizabethan era to give a young girl a bedroom to herself. Rachel watched her niece narrowly; but Lucrece neither said nor did anything from which the least information could be gleaned. She was neither elated nor depressed, but just as usual,--demure, slippery, and unaccountable.

Rachel kept her eye also, like an amateur detective, upon Arthur. He came frequently, and generally managed to get a walk with Lucrece in the garden. On two occasions the detective, seated at her own window, which overlooked the garden, saw that Arthur was entreating or urging something, to which Lucrece would not consent.

The month of Sir Piers Feversham's stay was drawing to a close, and still Rachel had not spoken to her brother about Lucrece. She felt considerably puzzled as to what it would be either right or wise to do.

Lucrece was no foolish, romantic, inexperienced child like Blanche, but a woman of considerable worldly wisdom and strong self-reliance. It was no treachery to interfere with her, in her aunt's eyes, since Lucrece herself had been the traitor; and for Clare's sake Rachel longed to rescue Arthur, whom she considered infatuated and misled.

Before Rachel had been able to make up her mind on this point, one Sat.u.r.day afternoon Sir Thomas sought her, and asked her to come to the library.

"Rachel," he said, "I would fain have thy counsel. Sir Piers Feversham--much to mine amazing--hath made me offer of service [courtship] for Lucrece. What thinkest thereon?"

"Brother, leave her go!"

"He is by three years elder than I, Rachel."

"Ne'er mind thou."

"Methinks he should make the maid a good husband?" remarked Sir Thomas interrogatively.

"Better than she shall make him a wife," said Rachel grimly.

"Rachel!"

"Brother, I have ne'er said this to thee aforetime; but my true conviction is that Lucrece is a mischief-maker, and until she be hence, there is like to be little peace for any. I saw not all things at the first; but I can tell thee now that she hath won Arthur Tremayne into her toils, and methinks she tried hard to compa.s.s Don Juan. If she will wed with Sir Piers (and he dare venture on her!) let it be so: he is old enough to have a care of himself; and she is less like to wreck his life than she should be with a younger man. In good sooth, there is all the less of it to wreck."

"Yet, Rachel, if the maid be entangled with Arthur--"

"Make thy mind easy, Tom. 'Tis Arthur is entangled, not she. Trust her for that! She hath good enough scissors for the cutting of a like knot."

"Arthur ne'er spake word to me," said Sir Thomas, with a perplexed, meditative air.

"That is it which I would know, Tom. Ne'er spake word, quotha? So much the better. Well! I reckon thou shalt be like to tell Orige; but leave her not persuade thee to the contrary course. Yet I think she is scarce like. A knighthood and Feversham Hall shall go down very sweetly with her."

"But there is yet another matter, Rachel. Sir Piers maketh offer to set Jack in good place about the Court, for the which he saith he hath power. What sayest to that, trow?"

"I say that Jack is safe to go to wrack some whither, and may be 'twere as well hence as. .h.i.ther."

"It shall be mighty chargeable, I fear," said Sir Thomas thoughtfully.

"Jack shall be that any whither."

"Wouldst have me, then, say Ay to both offers?"

"Nay, think well touching Jack first. I meant not that. Good sooth! I sorely mis...o...b..--"

"Well, I will see what saith Orige unto both, and Jack and Lucrece to either."

"If I be a prophet," answered Rachel, "one and all shall say, Ay."

If that were the criterion, Rachel proved a prophet One and all did say ay. Lady Enville was enchanted with both schemes. Jack averred that life at home was a very humdrum kind of thing, and life might be worth having in London, and at Court. And Lucrece, in her demure style, softly declared that she was thankful for Sir Piers' goodness, and would gladly accept his offer, though she felt that her merits were not equal to the kind estimate which he had formed of her.

"But, Lucrece," said her father gravely, "one told me that Arthur Tremayne had made suit unto thee."

If he expected the mask to drop for an instant from the soft, regular features of Lucrece, he was sadly disappointed. Not a look, nor a gesture, showed that she felt either surprised or disconcerted.

"'Tis true, Father. The poor lad did say some like words unto me. But I gave him no encouragement to seek you."

"Thou wouldst have me to conceive, then, that thou art wholly free from any plight whatsoe'er unto Arthur?"

"Wholly free, Father. I ne'er gave him to wit otherwise."

Sir Thomas believed her; Rachel did not. The next thing, in the squire's honest eyes, was to let Arthur know that Lucrece was about to marry Sir Piers,--not directly, since Arthur himself had made no open declaration; but he proposed to go down to the parsonage, and mention the fact, as if incidentally, in Arthur's presence. He found Lucrece rather averse to this scheme.

"It should but trouble the poor lad," she said. "Why not leave him discover the same as matters shall unfold them?"

"Tom!" said Rachel to her brother apart, "go thou down, and tell Arthur the news. I am afeared Lucrece hath some cause, not over good, for wishing silence kept."