"I did not mean to fright you," said Arthur, with a smile, as he came inside and sat down. "I desired speech of you, on a matter whereof I could not well touch save in private. Clare,--may I speak,--dear Clare?" But of course, dear reader, you know all about it. So Clare was first with somebody, after all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Note 1. A price which, about sixty years before, a vice-queen had thought sufficient in presenting a new year's gift to Queen Anne Boleyn. John Husee writes to his mistress, Honour Viscountess Lisle, in 1534, that he has obtained the kersey for her gift to the Queen, eleven and a quarter yards at 5 shillings the yard, "very fine and very white." (Lisle Papers, twelve 90.) A few weeks later he writes, "The Queen's grace liketh your kersey specially well." (Lisle Papers, eleven 112.) Note 2. The disuse of this custom in England really dates from a rather later period. `Sister' has somewhat resumed its position, but `Daughter' and `Niece,' in the vocative, are never heard amongst us now. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. "DIEU LA VOULU." "Over himself and his own heart's complaining Victorious still." The bells were pealing merrily for the marriage of Clare Avery--I beg her pardon--of Clare Tremayne; and the wedding party were seated at breakfast in the great hall at Enville Court. "The bridesmaids be well-looking," said Lady Enville, behind her fan, to Sir Piers Feversham, who was her next neighbour,--for Sir Piers and Lucrece had come to the wedding--"and I do hear Mistress Penelope Travis--she of them that is nearest--is like to be the next bride of our vicinage." "Say you so?" responded Sir Piers. "I do desire all happiness be with her. But there is one of yonder maids for whom in very deed I feel compassion, and it is Mistress Lysken Barnevelt. Her May is well-nigh over, and no bells be ringing for her. Poor maiden!" "Go to, now, what dolts be men!" quoth Mistress Rachel Enville, addressing herself, to all appearance, to the dish of flummery which stood before her. "They think, poor misconceiving companions! that we be all a-dying for them. That's a man's notion. Moreover, they take it that 'tis the one end and aim of every woman in the world to be wed. That's a man's notion, again. And belike they fancy, poor patches! that when she striketh thirty years on the bell, any woman will wed any man that will but take compassion to ask her. That caps all their notions. (Thou shalt right seldom hear a woman to make no such a blunder. They know better.) Poor blockheads!--as if we could not be useful nor happy without _them_! Lysken Barnevelt and Rachel Enville, at the least, be not fools enough to think it." "Neither is the Queen's Majesty, my mistress," observed Sir Piers, greatly amused. "Who e'er said the Queen's Majesty were a fool?" demanded Rachel bluntly. "She is a woman, and no man--Heaven be praised for all His mercies!"