Lady Levett gave me nothing but her admonition. I was going, she said, to a house where I should meet with strangers who would perhaps, after the manner of strangers, be quicker at seeing a fault than a grace, and this particularly at the outset and very beginning, when people are apt to be suspicious and to notice carefully. Therefore I was to be circumspect in my behaviour, and above all, be careful in my speech, giving soft words in return for hard, and answering railing, if there was any railing, with silence. But perhaps, she said, there would be no railing, but only kindness and love, in the which case I was all the more to preserve sweet speech and sweet thoughts, so as not to trouble love. Then she was good enough to say that I had ever been a good maid and dutiful, and she doubted not that so I would continue in my new world, wherefore she kissed me tenderly, and prayed, with tears in her eyes--for my lady, though quick and sharp, was wondrous kind of heart--that the Lord would have me in His keeping. I say nothing about Sir Robert, because he was always fond of me, and would almost as soon have parted from his Nancy. Now it was a week and more since I had, without knowing it, received those overtures of love from Harry Temple and Will, which I took in my innocence for mere overtures of friendship and brotherly affection. They thought, being conceited, like all young men, that I had at once divined their meaning and accepted their proposals; no doubt they gave themselves credit for condescension and me for gratitude. Therefore, when, the evening before I came away, Harry Temple begged me, with many protestations of regret, not to inform Sir Robert or madam of his intentions, I knew not what to say. What intentions? why should I not? "Reigning star of Beauty!" he cried, laying his hand upon his heart, "I entreat thy patience for a twelvemonth. Alas! such separation! who can bear it! "'Fond Thyrsis sighs, through mead and vale, His absent nymph lamenting----'" "O Harry!" I cried, "what do I care about Thyrsis and absent nymphs? You have promised to bring me back in a year. Very well, then, I shall expect you. Of course you can tell Sir Robert whatever you please. It is nothing to me what you tell Sir Robert or my lady." "She is cold as Diana," said Harry, with a prodigious sigh; but I broke from him, and would hear no more such nonsense. Sighing shepherds and cruel nymphs were for ever on Harry Temple's lips. As for Will, of course he wanted to have an explanation too. He followed Harry, and, in his rustic way, begged to say a word or two. "Pray go on, Will," I said. "I promised a twelvemonth," he explained. "I'll not go back upon my word. I _did_ say a twelvemonth." "A twelvemonth? Oh yes. You said the same as Harry, I remember."