"A poor widow! Ay, forsooth, poor soul, that you are! for you have made of your widowhood so black a pall that you cannot see God's blue sky through it. Dear heart, but why ever they called her Faith, and me Temperance! I've well-nigh as little temperance as she has faith, and neither of them would break a cat's back." By this time they were up in the bedchamber; and Lettice was kept busy folding, pinning, tying up, and smoothing out one garment after another, until at last her aunt said-- "Now, Lettice, bring thine own gear, such as thou wilt need till we light at Minster Lovel, for there can we shift our baggage. Thy black beaver hat thou wert best to journey in, for though it be good, 'tis well worn; and thy grey kirtle and red gown. Bring the blue gown, and the tawny kirtle with the silver aglets [tags, spangles] pendant, and thy lawn rebatoes, [turn-over collar] and a couple of kerchiefs, and thy satin hat Thou wert best leave out a warm kerchief for the journey." "And my velvet hood, Aunt, and the green kirtle?" "Nay, I have packed them, not to be fetched out till we reach London. Thou mayest have thy crimson sleeves withal, an' it list thee." Lettice fetched the things, and her aunt packed them in one of the great leather trunks, with beautiful neatness. As she smoothed out the blue kirtle, she asked--"Lettice, art thou sorry to be gone?" "Truly, Aunt, I scarce know," was the answer. "I am sorry to leave Aunt Milisent and my cousins, and Aunt Frances,"--but Aunt Frances was an evident after-thought--"and I dare say I shall be sorry to leave all the places I know, when the time comes. But then so many of us are going,-- you, and Grandmother, and Aunt Edith, and Cousin Aubrey, and Aunt Faith--and there are so many new places to see, that on the whole I don't think I am very sorry." "No, very like not, child." "Not now," said a third voice, softly, and Lettice looked up at another aunt whose presence she had not previously noticed. This was certainly no sister of the two plain women whose acquaintance we have just made. Temperance Murthwaite had outlived her small share of good looks, and Faith's had long since been washed away in tears; but Edith Louvaine had been extremely beautiful, and yet was so notwithstanding her forty years. Her hair was dark brown, with a golden gleam when the sun caught it, and her eyes a deep blue, almost violet. Her voice was sweet and quiet--of that type of quietness which hides behind it a reserve of power and feeling. "At eighteen, Lettice, we are not commonly sorry to leave home. Much sorrier at thirty-eight: and at eighty, I think, there is little to leave but graves." "Ay, but they're not all dug by the sexton," remarked Temperance, patting the blue kirtle to make it lie in the hole she had left for it. "At any rate, the sorest epitaphs are oft invisible save to them that have eyes to see them."