I found an opportunity for a chat with Lady Judith the very next day. We were busy broidering Lady Sybil’s wedding-dress, the super-tunic of which is to be white baudekyn, diapered in gold, and broidered with deep red roses. She wears white, on account of being a widow. Lady Isabel will be in gold-coloured baudekyn, and my new sister Eschine in rose damask. I have said nothing about Eschine, though she is here. It was because I had not any thing to say. Her eyes, hair, and complexion are of no colour in particular; she is not beautiful—nor ugly: she is not agreeable—nor disagreeable. She talks very little. I feel absolutely indifferent to her. I should think she would just do for Amaury. Well!—we were broidering the tunic, Lady Judith doing the gold, and I the red; and Damoiselle Melisende had been with us, working the green leaves, but the Lady Queen sent for her, and she went away. So Lady Judith and I were left alone. "Holy Mother," said I, "give me leave to ask you a question." "Surely, my child," said she; "any one thou wilt." "Then, holy Mother,—do people ever disappoint you? I mean, when you fancy you know a man, does he never surprise you by some action which you think unworthy of him, and which you would not have expected from him?" Lady Judith’s first answer was an amused smile. "Who has been disappointing thee, Helena?" "Oh, nobody in particular," said I hastily; for how could I accuse Guy? _Loyauté d’amour_ forbid! "But I mean in general." "Generals are made of particulars, Helena. But I have not answered thy question. Yes, certainly I have known such a feeling." "And, if it please you, holy Mother, what is the reason of it?" said I. "Does one set up one’s standard of right, truth, and beauty, too high?" "That is not possible, my child. I should rather think thou hast set up the man too high." "Oh!" said I deprecatingly. "Hast thou ever heard a saying, Helena, that ’a man sees only that which he brings eyes to see’? There is much truth in it. No man can understand a character which is higher or broader than his own. Admire it he may; enter into it, he cannot. Human character is a very complicated thing." "Then one may be too low to see a man’s character?" "True; and one may be too high. A single eye will never understand a double one.—Or they may be too far asunder. A miser and a spendthrift are both in the wrong, but neither of them can feel with the other." "But where the temperaments are alike—?" said I; for I always think Guy and I were cast in the same mould. "They never are quite alike," she replied. "As in a shield borne by two brothers, there is always a difference." "Pray you, holy Mother, do you think my brother Guy and me alike?" "Alike, yet very different," she said, and smiled. "Cast from one mould,—yet he on the one side of it, and thou on the other." "What do you think is the difference, holy Mother? May I know?" "Wouldst thou like to know, Helena?" she said, and smiled again.