"I am sure some one has been telling her something. She has asked me to-night if she had not once a sister, and if her name were not Anegay." The exclamation in reply was more forcible than elegant. But that night, as Belasez lay in bed, through half-closed eyes she saw her mother enter and hold the lantern to her face. I am sorry to add that Belasez instantly counterfeited profound sleep; and Licorice retired with apparent satisfaction. "Husband!" she heard her mother say, a few minutes later, "either some son of a Philistine has told that child something, or she has overheard our words." "What makes thee think so?" Abraham's tone was one of great distress, if not terror. "She has been asking questions of Genta. But she has got hold of the wrong pattern--she fancies Anegay was her sister." "Does she?" replied Abraham, in a tone of sorrowful tenderness. "There's less harm in her thinking that, than if she knew the truth. Genta showed great good sense: she professed to know nothing at all about it." "Dissimulation again, Licorice!" came, with a heavy sigh, from Abraham. "Hold thy tongue! Where should we be without it?" Abraham made no answer. But early on the following morning he summoned Belasez to the little porch-chamber, and she went with her heart beating. As she suspected, the catechism was now to be gone through. But poor Abraham was the more timid of the two. He was so evidently unwilling to speak, and so regretfully tender, that Belasez's heart warmed, and she lost all her shyness. Of course, she told him more than she otherwise would have done. Belasez denied the existence of any Christian lover, or indeed of any lover at all, with such clear, honest eyes, that Abraham could not but believe her. But, he urged, had she ever seen any man in the Castle, to speak to him? "Yes," said Belasez frankly. "Not while the Lady was there. But during her absence, Sir Richard de Clare had been three times in the bower, and the priests had given lessons to the damsels in the ante-chamber." "Did any of these ever speak to thee?" "Sir Richard never spoke to me but twice, further than to say `Good morrow.' Once he admired a pattern I was working, and once he asked me, when I came in from the leads, if it were raining." "Didst thou care for him, my daughter?" "Not in the least," said Belasez, "nor he for me. I rather think Damsel Margaret was his attraction." Her father seemed satisfied on that point. "And these priests? How many were there?" Belasez told him. "Master Aristoteles the physician, and Father Nicholas, and Father Warner, chaplains of my Lord the Earl; and the chaplain of the Lady." She hardly knew what instinct made her unwilling to utter Father Bruno's name; and, most unintentionally, she blushed. "Oh!" said Abraham to himself, "the Lady's chaplain is the dangerous person.--Are they old men, my child?" "None of them is either very old or very young, Father." "Describe them to me, I pray thee."