"Well, so be it," answered Sir William Arden, with a laugh. "That is something solid at all events. He can offer nothing but a shadow in a slashed doublet, a mere voice and a walking suit of clothes. Echo is nothing to him, in respect of thinness; and I should fear his undergoing Narcissus' fate, but that he loves himself better than even Narcissus, and would not part with his own pretty person for anything else whatsoever, be it substance or shadow. He will never pine himself either into a flower or a water-course, as those young gentlemen and ladies did in days of old." "I should be a great fool if I did," replied Hungerford; "but if you were to begin to melt, Arden, all the world would thaw; for it is difficult to say whether your head or your heart is the hardest." "Why, gentlemen, you are using very bitter words," said the pretty lady, on the other side of Sir Edward Hungerford. "Really I must appeal to my good Lord Calverly." "Nay, rather let me appeal to you," said Hungerford, in a tender tone; and thenceforth he continued to talk with her till the supper was over, which was all she wanted. "That shaft is shot," said Arden, resuming the conversation with Constance, but speaking in a lower tone than before. "You asked but now, 'Is she happy?' and, good faith, she does not look like it. Her lips have hardly moved since we sat down to the board; but methinks that question might be put of every one round. It is not the gay smile, or the cheerful laugh, that shows a happy heart within; and I doubt much, if you could see into every bosom along these two ranks of human things, whether you would not find some hidden care, or some sorrow that flies the light." "That is to say," replied Constance, "that every one who mingles with the world finds unhappiness in it; a fine argument to keep me out of a convent, truly. Either your gallantry or your wit halts, Sir William; for, to my knowledge, there is many a happy heart beats in the cloister." "Are there no masks there?" asked the stout knight. "If not, there are veils, fair Constance; and, take my word for it, sooner or later, there come regrets and repinings, longings to see the world that has been renounced, and pluck some of the fruit of the pleasant tree of knowledge, that bitter sweet, the pleasant berries of which tempt the eye from afar, although there is now no serpent hid amongst the foliage." "But look at my good aunt, the abbess," answered the young lady. "She has none of these regrets and repinings that you mention. She is always merry, cheerful, contented." "Ay, but hers is a case by itself," answered Arden. "She can get out when she likes; and a good creature she is. Her life is as easy as a widow's. No, no. Take my advice, and think not of a convent." "Why, what would you have me do in the wide world?" asked Constance, half gaily, half sadly.