"Oh ay!" responded his wife, who was prepared to fall down at the feet of her daughter-in-law, because she was _Lady_ Gertrude. "So commanding is she!--as a very queen, I do protest. She hath no doubt been used to great store of serving-maidens." "That maketh not our daughters serving-maids," said Sir Thomas in an annoyed tone. "I would have thought her mother should have kept her in order," said Rachel with acerbity. "If that woman were my daughter, she had need look out." Rachel did not know that Gertrude had no mother, and had been allowed to do just as she pleased ever since she was ten years old. Meanwhile, up-stairs, from trunk after trunk, under Gertrude's directions--she did not help personally--Clare and Blanche were lifting dresses in such quantities that Blanche wondered what they could have cost, and innocent Clare imagined that their owner must have brought all she expected to want for the term of her natural life. "There!" said Gertrude, when the last trunk which held dresses was emptied. "How many be they? Count. Seventeen--only seventeen? What hath yon lither hilding [wicked girl] Audrey been about? There should be nineteen; twenty, counting that I bear. I would I might be hanged if she hath not left out, my cramoisie! [crimson velvet!] the fairest gown I have! And"--with an oath--"if she hath put in my blue taffata, broidered with seed-pearl, I would I might serve as a kitchener!" Rachel walked in while Gertrude was speaking. "Surely you lack no more!" said Blanche. "Here be seven velvet gowns, and four of satin!" "Enow for you, belike!" answered Gertrude, with a sneer. "Enow for any Christian woman, Niece, and at the least ten too many," said Rachel severely. "Lack-a-daisy!--you have dwelt so long hereaway in this wilderness, you wit not what lacketh for decency in apparel," returned Gertrude irreverently, greatly scandalising both her sisters-in-law by her disrespect to Aunt Rachel. "How should I make seventeen gowns serve for a month?" "If you don a new every second day," said Rachel, "there shall be two left over at the end thereof." Gertrude stared at her for a moment, then broke into loud laughter. "Good heart, if she think not they be all of a sort! Why, look you here--this is a riding gown, and this a junketing gown, and this a night-gown [evening dress]. Two left over, quotha!" "I would fain, Niece," said Rachel gravely, "you had paid as much note unto the adorning of your soul as you have to that of your body. You know 'tis writ--but may be 'tis not the fashion to read God's Word now o' days?" "In church, of course," replied Gertrude. "Only Puritans read it out of church." "You be no Puritan, trow?" "Gramercy! God defend me therefrom!"