I could not help looking eagerly up at this. Mistress Davis saw it, and smiled. "Here is Loveday thinking, 'Now that is just the place for me,'" said she. "Were you not, chick?" I confessed that some such matter had been in my thought. "And why should it be in your thought?" asked Mistress Curtis, a little severely, as it seemed. "Are you not happy and content with my sister?" "More than happy, madam," I answered. "I should be the basest of ingrates were it otherwise. But Master and Mistress Davis have many burdens on their hands already, and it seems not right that I should add to them, being young and strong, and having (under your favor, madam) a good education, which ought to stand in stead in earning a living." "Why that is speaking well, and like a sensible woman," said Mistress Curtis. "How old are you?" I told her that I was eighteen. "It is full young, her Grace herself being so youthful; and yet better the follies of youth than those of age," she added, in a musing tone. "Loveday is not perfect more than other young people," said Mistress Davis; "but yet I think she hath as few of these follies as fall to the lot of most maidens. I hope my own wenches * may grow up as good and towardly as she. But Loveday, why should you wish to leave us?" "Only because I would not be a burden on your hands, dear aunt," (so I had called her of late, by her own desire). "You have many to do for who are really helpless from age and sickness, and I cannot but feel that I am robbing some such person when I eat the bread of idleness in your house." * Wench and wretch were terms of endearment in those days, and the former is so still in some parts of England. Sir Thomas More uses it to his daughters. "Oh, ho! I see that we can think for ourselves, and that to purpose," said Mistress Curtis, with a smile. Hers was one of those faces in which the eyes smile before the lips. "But what of your family, damsel? Are you of gentle blood?" I satisfied her on that point. Indeed the Corbets are among the oldest of our old Devon families, and go back far beyond the Conqueror. (N. B.—'Tis no great wonder he conquered, seeing how many people's ancestors came over with him.) Then she would have me read and sing for her. Being naturally somewhat agitated, I did not acquit myself as well as usual, but Mistress Curtis seemed to be satisfied. "I see, indeed, that you have been well taught," said she. "You are convent-bred, you say. Where?" I told her. "It was a good house," she said, musingly: "I much wonder, sister, what young ladies will do for schools of education now that the convents are all gone. 'Twere a good deed for some one to set up a school where such might board and study under good mistresses. Well, my young lady, I like your conditions, so far as I see them. With my sister's permission, I will now ask you to withdraw, that I may talk the matter over with her."