"How mean you, _Aunt_, an' it like you?" saith _Nell_. "Why, look you here," saith Aunt _Joyce_. "But this last week, said I to Master _Coward_, touching somewhat he had said, `But,' said I, `that were not just.' Quoth he, `How, my mistress!--you a woman, and love justice?' Again: there was once a companion would fain have won me to wed him. When I said `Nay,' (and meant it), quoth he, `Oh, a maid doth never say yea at the first.' And I do believe that both these thought to flatter me. If they had but known how I longed to shake them! For look you what the words meant. A woman is never just: a woman is never sincere. And the dolts reckon it shall please us to know that they take us for such fools! Verily, I would give a pretty penny but to make them conceive that the scrap of flattery which they do offer to my particular is utterly swamped in the vast affront which they give to my sex in the general. But you shall rarely see a man to guess that. Moreover, there be two other points. Mark you how a man shall serve a woman, if he come to know that she hath the tongues [knows the classical languages]. Doth he take it as he should with an other man? Never a whit. He treats the matter as though an horse should read _English_, or a cat play the spinnet. What right hath he to account my brains so much worser than his (I being the same creature as he) that I cannot learn aught he can? `So mean-brained a thing as a woman to know as much as any man!' I grant you, he shall not say such words: but he shall say words that mean it. And then, forsooth, he shall reckon he hath paid me a compliment! I trow no woman should have brains as dull as that. And do tell me, belike, why a man that can talk right good sense to his fellows, shall no sooner turn him around to a woman, than he shall begin to chatter the veriest nonsense? It doth seem me, that a man never thinks of any woman but the lowest quality. He counts her loving, if you will; but alway foolish, frothy, witless. He'll take every one of you for that make of woman, till he find the contrary. Oh, these men! these men!" "Ah!" saith _Father_. "I feel myself one of the inferior sex." "_Aubrey_, what business hast thou hearkening?" quoth she. "I thought thou wert lost in yonder big book." "I found myself again, some minutes gone," saith _Father_. "But thou wist, 'tis an old saw that listeners do never hear any good of themselves." "I didn't mean thee, man!" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "Present company always excepted." "Methought I was reckoned absent company," saith _Father_, with a twinkle in his eyes, and lifting his big book from the table. "Howbeit, I am not too proud to learn." "Even from a woman?" quoth Aunt _Joyce_. "Thou art the pearl of men, if so be." _Father_ laughed, and carried off his book, pausing at the door to observe--"There is some truth in much thou hast said, _Joyce_."