"You do not grudge it, Judith?" said Prudence. "Nay, I will not ask thee that. Nor can I refuse it either, for the children are in sore want. But why should you not give it to them yourself, Judith?"

"Why?" said Judith, regarding the gentle face with kindly eyes. "Shall I tell thee why, sweetheart? 'Tis but this: that if I were in need, and help to be given me, I would value it thrice as much if it came from your hand. There is a way of doing such things, and you have it; that is all."

"I hear Julius is come in," Prudence said, as she took up the two candles. "Will you go in and speak with him?"

There was some strange hesitation in her manner, and she did not go to the door. She glanced at Judith somewhat timidly. Then she set the candles down again.

"Judith," said she, "your pity is quick, and you are generous and kind; I would you could find it in your heart to extend your kindness."

"How now, good cousin?" Judith said, in amazement. "What's this?"

Prudence glanced at her again, somewhat uneasily, and obviously in great embarra.s.sment.

"You will not take it ill, dear Judith?"

"By my life, I will not! Not from you, dear heart, whatever it be. But what is the dreadful secret?"

"Tom Quiney has spoken to me," she said, diffidently.

Judith eagerly caught both her hands.

"And you! What said you? 'Tis all settled, then!" she exclaimed, almost breathlessly.

"It is as I imagined, Judith," said Prudence, calmly--and she withdrew her hands, with a touch of maidenly pride, perhaps, from what she could not but imagine to be a kind of felicitation. "He hath no fault to find with the country. If he goes away to those lands beyond seas, 'tis merely because you will say no word to hold him back."

"I!" said Judith, impatiently; and then she checked herself. "But you, sweetheart, what said he to you?"

Prudence's cheeks flushed red.

"He would have me intercede for him," she said, timidly.

"Intercede? with whom?"

"Why, you know, Judith; with whom but yourself? Nay, but be patient--have some kindness. The young man opened his heart to me; and I know he is in trouble. 'Twas last night as we were coming home from the lecture; and he would have me wait till he left a message at his door, so that thus we fell behind; and then he told me why it was that Stratford had grown distasteful to him, and not to be borne, and why he was going away. How could I help saying that that would grieve you?--sure I am you cannot but be sorry to think of the young man banishing himself from his own people. And he said that I was your nearest friend; and would I speak for him? And I answered that I was all unused to such matters, but that if any pleading of mine would influence you I would right gladly do him that service; and so I would, dear Judith; for how can you bear to think of the youth going away with these G.o.dless men, and perchance never to return to his own land, when a word from you would restrain him?"

Judith took both her hands again, and looked with a kindly smile into the timid, pleading eyes.

"And 'tis you, sweet mouse, that come to me with such a prayer? Was there ever so kind a heart? But that is you ever and always--never a thought for yourself, everything for others. And so he had the cruelty to ask you--you--to bring this message?"

"Judith," said the other, with the color coming into her face again, "you force me to speak against my will. Nay, how can I hide from myself, dear friend, that you have plans and wishes--perchance suspicions--with regard to me? And if what I guess be true--if that is your meaning--indeed 'tis all built on a wrong foundation: believe me, Judith, it is so. I would have you a.s.sured of it, sweetheart. You know that I like not speaking of such matters; 'tis not seemly and becoming to a maiden; and fain would I have my mind occupied with far other things; but, Judith, this time I must speak plain; and I would have you put away from you all such intentions and surmises--dear heart, you do me wrong!"

"In good sooth, am I all mistaken?" Judith said, glancing keenly at her.

"Do you doubt my word, Judith?" said she.

"And yet," her friend said, as if to herself, and musingly, "there were several occasions: there was the fortune-teller at Hampton Lucy that coupled you, and Quiney seemed right merry withal; and then again, when he would have us play kiss-in-the-ring on the evening after Mary Sadler's marriage, and I forbade it chiefly for your sake, sweet mouse, then methought you seemed none overpleased with my interference----"

But here she happened to look at Prudence, and she could not fail to see that the whole subject was infinitely distressing to her. There was a proud, hurt expression on the gentle face, and a red spot burning in each cheek. So Judith took hold of her and kissed her.

"Once and forever, dearest heart," said she, "I banish all such thoughts. And I will make no more plans for thee, nor suspect thee, but let thee go in thine own way, in the paths of charity and goodness. But I mean not to give up thy friendship, sweet Prue; if I cannot walk in the same path, at least I may stretch a hand over to thee; and if I but keep so near so true a saint, marry, I shall not go so far wrong."

She took up one of the candles.

"Shall we go down and see Julius?" said she.

"But Tom Quiney, Judith--what shall I say?" Prudence asked, anxiously.

"Why, say nothing, sweetheart," was the immediate answer. "'Twas a shame to burden you with such a task. When he chooses he can at any moment have speech of me, if his worship be not too proud or too suspicious. In Stratford we can all of us speak the English tongue, I hope."

"But, Judith," said the other, slowly and wistfully, "twenty years is a long s.p.a.ce for one to be away from his native land."

"Marry is it, sweet mouse," Judith answered, as she opened the door and proceeded to go down the narrow wooden steps. "'Tis a long s.p.a.ce indeed, and at the end of it many a thing that seemeth of great import and consequence now will be no better than an old tale, idle and half forgotten."

CHAPTER XXII.

PORTENTS.

It was somewhat hard on little Bess Hall that her aunt Judith was determined she should grow up as fearless as she herself was, and had, indeed, charged herself with this branch of her niece's education. The child, it is true, was not more timid than others of her age, and could face with fair equanimity beggars, school-boys, cows, geese, and other dangerous creatures; while as for ghosts, goblins, and similar nocturnal terrors, Judith had settled all that side of the question by informing the maids of both families, in the plainest language, that any one of them found even mentioning such things to this niece of hers would be instantaneously and without ceremony shot forth from the house. But beyond and above all this Judith expected too much, and would flout and scold when Bess Hall declined to perform the impossible, and would threaten to go away and get a small boy out of the school to become her playmate in future. At this moment, for example, she was standing at the foot of the staircase in Dr. Hall's house. She had come round to carry off her niece for the day, and she had dressed her up like a small queen, and now she would have her descend the wide and handsome staircase in n.o.ble state and unaided. Bess Hall, who had no ambition to play the part of a queen, but had, on the other hand, a wholesome and instinctive fear of breaking her neck, now stood on the landing, helpless amid all her finery, and looking down at her aunt in a beseeching sort of way.

"I shall tumble down, Aunt Judith; I know I shall," said she, and budge she would not.

"Tumble down, little stupid! Why, what should make you tumble down? Are you going forever to be a baby? Any baby can crawl down-stairs by holding on to the bal.u.s.ters."

"I know I shall tumble down, Aunt Judith--and then I shall cry."

But even this threat was of no avail.

"Come along, little goose; 'tis easy enough when you try it. Do you think I have dressed you up as a grown woman to see you crawl like a baby? A fine woman--you! Come along, I say!"

But this lesson, happily for the half-frightened pupil, was abruptly brought to an end. Judith was standing with her face to the staircase, and her back to the central hall and the outer door, so that she could not see any one entering, and indeed the first intimation she had of the approach of a stranger was a voice behind her:

"Be gentle with the child, Judith."

And then she knew that she was caught. For some little time back she had very cleverly managed to evade the good parson, or at least to secure the safety of company when she saw him approach. But this time she was as helpless as little Bess herself. Dr. Hall was away from home; Judith's sister was ill of a cold, and in bed; there was no one in the house, besides the servants, but herself. The only thing she could do was to go up to the landing, swing her niece on to her shoulder, and say to Master Walter that they were going round to New Place, for that Susan was ill in bed, and unable to look after the child.

"I will walk with you as far," said he, calmly, and, indeed, as if it were rather an act of condescension on his part.

She set out with no good-will. She expected that he would argue, and she had an uncomfortable suspicion that he would get the best of it. And if she had once or twice rather wildly thought that in order to get rid of all perplexities, and in order to please all the people around her, she would in the end allow Master Walter Blaise to win her over into becoming his wife, still she felt that the time was not yet. She would have the choosing of it for herself. And why should she be driven into a corner prematurely? Why be made to confess that her brain could not save her? She wanted peace. She wanted to play with Bess Hall, or to walk through the meadows with Willie Hart, teaching him what to think of England. She did not want to be confronted with clear, cold eyes, and arguments like steel, and the awful prospect of having to labor in the vineyard through the long, long, gray, and distant years. She grew to think it was scarcely fair of her father to hand her over. He at least might have been on her side. But he seemed as willing as any that she should go away among the saints, and forsake forever (as it seemed to her) the beautiful, free and clear-colored life that she had been well content to live.

And then, all of a sudden, it flashed upon her mind that she was a player's daughter, and a kind of flame went to her face.

"I pray you, good Master Blaise," said she, with a lofty and gracious courtesy, "bethink you, ere you give us your company through the town."

"What mean you, Judith?" said he, in some amazement.