"My handsome mistress's beautiful cheeks, that turned red when she knew Sir Mark Leslie was coming, and her red, ripe lips, that spake his name. La, mistress, don't be angry with little me, for wishing to see thee with a handsome, gallant husband. But I shouldn't like though for him to be so fond of Sweet Mace down at the forge." "And who dare say he is?" cried Mistress Anne, angrily. "They say he be, mistress, and that he pooked Captain Culverin about her, and the captain was nearly drowned as well." "Who told thee all this?" cried Anne. "Janet, who lives there, helped the news to me," replied the girl; "but Sir Mark would never bemean himself to marry such a creature as that Mistress Mace." "Hold thy prating tongue," cried Mistress Anne; "and if I find thee talking about my affairs, girl, or what thou seest, Sir Thomas shall know." Hastily tying on hat and cloak, she started for Mother Goodhugh's, Polly, her apple-faced little maid, making a grimace as she left the room. "I shall talk as much as I like," said the girl, giving her head a toss; "mighty madam, as you be. Tell Sir Thomas, and I'll tell what I see going on from this window, down in the nut-stubbs. Ha, ha, ha! how my lady did stare." Mistress Anne lost no time in making her way across the fields and through the woods, to Mother Goodhugh's; finding the old woman seated at her door, watching her bees as they flew in and out from the straw-hives in her garden-patch. "Ah, my dearie," she exclaimed; "you be come again?" "Yes, mother," cried Anne, trying, now to keep calm and cool. "What is this I hear about Captain Carr?" "Captain Carr be not for thee," cried the old woman, firing up; "he be a murderer--he has slain my best old friend, and if Sir Thomas, thy father, does not have him hung, he be no true man." "Softly," said Mistress Anne; "softly, mother." "Nay, I will go softly no more. But of thine own affairs, dearie, Captain Gil Carr is cursed, with all he does. My words have brought him evil already, and thee good. Sir Mark, the handsome stranger, is to wed my handsome mistress. I sent him thee to-day." "You sent him?" "Ah, child, mock away. I sent him on his way to London. Tell me, if thou darest, that he did not say sweet things to thee? Ay, thy face tells it. Child, he be thine." "Nay, mother," cried Anne, who was thrown off her guard by the old woman's apparent knowledge; "he is coming back soon, and he will go to the foundry-house, and--and--" "Mace Cobbe? Nay, child, nay; the game be thine own now. He and Mace have nothing between them. He be thine if thou wilt have him." "How can you tell me that, mother?" "What!" cried the old woman, "have not I worked upon him night and day, till he and that girl are at odds? I say, child; the game be thine own."