“How now, Mistress Aline Gillespie; but you are too young to understand these things. Children’s hearts are too soft and if we hearkened to what they said, there would be an end to all order.” “Marry, no,” she answered boldly, drawing herself up, “it is order I want to see and not disorder. Punish the guilty and spare the innocent. Wanton destruction is not order, and that indeed liketh me not.” “It is a nest of scoundrels, little maid, and all your pretty haughtiness cannot save them.” “Some of them are scoundrels, I know, harry them as ye may, but some are god-fearing folk that never did harm to you or other. I know one carline there, whose like would be hard to find by all Tees-side.” Her mien was irresistible. “Come sit and talk,” he said. So Aline pleaded for the better folk, while she spared no condemnation of the worse. She not only gained her point, but she gained a staunch ally as well. Master Hugh fell under her witchery and nothing would content him, but that he should find her a horse and ride back with her to Holwick. “It’s a fine old place, this home of yours,” he said, as he looked up at the gateway-tower, with the arms of the Mowbrays over the entrance archway;--“a meet abode for so fair a princess,” he added gallantly; then helping her to alight and bowing low over her hand, like a courtier, with a gravity half playful, half serious, he kissed it, mounted his horse and rode away. Aline had tried also to get hold of Lord Middleton’s reeve, but was unsuccessful; her plans, however, were favoured next day by the representative of the Duke of Alston arriving an hour too soon. Mistress Mowbray was busy in preparations and, little knowing what she was doing, caught sight of Aline and called,--“Hither, wench, come you and take Master Latour into the pleasaunce and entertain him as ye may.” Ralph Latour was a tall stern man and Aline’s first thought was that she would fail, but she soon found that, though hard and in a measure unsympathetic, he had a strict and judicial mind, and was quite ready to accept her standpoint, although entirely without warmth or show of feeling. The child, however, fascinated him also, like the rest. Yet it was in a somewhat different way from her hold on other people. He was a man of considerable learning and taste, who had travelled widely, and in his cold critical way was absorbed in the subtlety of her beauty. Aline thought she had never met any one so awe-inspiring as he made her walk in front of him or sat her down opposite to him, in order that he might look at her. They discussed the subject thoroughly and he concluded by saying,--“Mistress Gillespie,--you are Mistress Gillespie, I understand?” “Mistress Aline,” she corrected. “I am told that you have neither brothers nor uncles and that the line ends in you, does it not?” “True,” she said.