"Oh, mercy, yes! Can she not overwatch the gardener to see that he planteth the right sort of herbs and flowers at the new of the moon, at moon full, and at moon old? She can chat with Mistress Cook of sallets and fricassees and fritters; she can count the linen; she can preserve quinces; she can distil you aqua composita or imperial water, or water of Bettony, against she grow old; she can be dairy-wise, cellar-wise, laundry-wise--oh, there are a thousand thousand things she can do if she want to do them, but the plague of it is, since I have burned powder, these decent drudgeries no longer divert me." She gave a little sigh as she ended her enumeration of a housewife's tasks, and then banished the sigh with a smile. Evander found himself thinking that a man might count himself happy for whom this lady should sigh so at parting and smile so in welcome. But what he said was: "Against your next distillation I can give you a very praisable recipe for a cordial. It is a Swedish fancy and much favored by the ladies of the North." Brilliana looked him full in the face and laughed very merrily, and he felt his cheeks redden at her gaze and her mirth. "Was there ever such a man-marvel?" she asked. "All my people praise you for some different accomplishment. A horseman, a gardener, the best at fence, the best, too, with a cudgel--" "Ah, madam," Evander interrupted, apologetically, "pray how has that come to your ears?" "Never mind how it came," Brilliana answered, "so that it has come and that I owe you no ill-will for teaching a foolish gentleman a lesson. But you can shoot, it seems, and play games, and are apt in out-door arts and wise in out-of-doors wisdom--for all the world like a country gentleman." "Madam, I am, as I hope, a gentleman, and as for the country knowledge, I have lived its life in many lands and learned something by the way." "And now," Brilliana bantered on, "you boast some science of the still-room, and Mistress Satchell speaks of a Spanish manner of grilling capons. Are you, perhaps, a herald as well as a master cook, and do you know something of the gentle and joyous craft of the huntsman?" Evander took her in her humor and bandied back the ball of qualification. "I can prick a coat indifferently well," he responded, solemnly, "and if such trifles delight you, I can blaze arms by the days of the week or the ages of man or the flowers of the field, though I hold that a true herald will never stray beyond colors." Brilliana nodded her head with an air of profound approval. "Better and better," she murmured. Evander went on with his catalogue of self-compliment.