"Dear heart!" saith she. "Could they ne'er buy a bale of flannel, and make some doublets and petticoats for the poor? He must be a poor silly companion that shall call a woman _Excellency_, when she hath done nought all her life but to pluck roses and finger her gold chain. Where's her excellency, belike?" "Things were ill enough in the Court of old," saith _Father_, "but it doth seem me we were scantly so brainless of old time as this. I shall send a letter to my cousin of _Oxenford_ touching _Walter_. He must not be suffered to drift into--" _Father_ did not end his sentence. But methought I could guess reasonable well how it should have been finished. Verily, I am troubled touching _Wat_, and will pray for him, that he may be preserved safe from the snares of the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Oh, what a blessed place must Heaven be, seeing there shall be none of them! One thing, howbeit, doth much comfort me,--and that is, that _Ned_ is true and staunch as ever to the early training he had of _Father_ and _Mother_ out of God's Word. Some folk might think him careless and too fond of laughter, and fun, and the like: but I know _Ned_--of early days I was ever his secret fellow--and I am well assured his heart is right and true. He shall 'bide with us until Sir _Humphrey Gilbert_ his next voyage out to the _Spanish_ seas, but we know not yet when that shall be. He had intended to make the coast of _Virginia_ this last time, but was beat back by the tempest. 'Tis said that when he goeth, his brother of the mother's side, Sir _Walter Raleigh_, shall go with him. This Sir _Walter_, saith _Ned_, is a young gentleman that hath but eight and twenty years, yet is already of much note in the Court. He hath a rare intelligence and a merry wit. Aunt _Joyce_ was mightily taken by one tale that _Ned_ told us of him,--how that, being at the house of some gentleman in the country, where the mistress of the house was mightily set up and precise, one morrow, this Sir _Walter_, that was a-donning [dressing] himself, did hear the said his precise and delicate hostess, without his door, to ask at her servants, "Be the pigs served?" No sooner had they met below, than saith Sir _Walter_, "Madam, be the pigs served?" But my Lady, that moved not a muscle of her face, replied as calm as you will, "You know best, Sir, whether you have had your breakfast." Aunt _Joyce_ did laugh o'er this, and said Sir _Walter_ demerited to have as good given him as he brought. "I do like," quoth she, "a woman that can stand up to a man!" "I can credit it, _Joyce_," saith _Father_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------