"Yes, indeed!" said Winifred, simply. "But what will my lady say? I am but a yeoman's daughter, you know. I can boast no gentle blood, save on the side of my mother, and I have no great fortune, which I have heard sometimes makes up for lack of long descent. I can do nothing against the will of my lady." "I believe my sister will make no objection," said Arthur. "I think she must see how the case stands. But, as you say, we owe a duty to her. She has been almost a mother to me, and more than a mother to you. We will do nothing without her. But the matter must be settled speedily, for the prince may move any day, and you wot, sweetheart, that when the master rides, the man must run." "Well, well!" said Mrs. Alwright at the conclusion of a private conference with her mistress, some days afterwards. "So this is the way it is to turn out! I never would allow Mrs. Winifred to read novels or plays, but I don't see but I might just as well have done so, for I am sure nothing more romantic is to be found even in the tales of King Arthur. And so, all the time I was thinking perhaps he may take a fancy to his cousin Mrs. Paulina, he was making up to Mrs. Winifred! And all the time I was teaching Winifred to sit straight at her frame and keep her head well up and her chin under, and to speak and carry herself like a lady, I was teaching the future Lady Carew—which shows the importance of doing a thing well while one is about it," moralized Alwright, "as I shall make a point of telling Mrs. Paulina, who is apt to slight her work and not fasten her threads well. And so little Winifred Evans, the daughter of Magdalen Coffin, is to stand in my old lady's shoes and sit in her chair! Well, well!" "You think my mother would have been shocked," said Lady Peckham; "yet, as I was saying to myself, Winifred's birth and breeding are both above that of the woman to whom my mother would have married poor Edward. Do you remember when she came down to the Hall on a visit?" "Aye, that I do!" said Alwright. "How she bustled in her silks and satins, and talked loud, and took the words out of my lady's mouth at her own table, and wondered 'how anybody as was anybody could abear to live down in Devonshire among the savages.' I promise you it was a bitter pill for my lady, despite the gilding; though she would have swallowed it for all that, only the London lady took fright at poor Master Edward's strange ways—for he was strange even then. But little Winnie Evans! However, my lady is not here to object, and will know nothing about it, that is one comfort. And even if she does, 'tis to be hoped she has learned to see things differently by this time. And when is the wedding to be, my lady?" "That we cannot say exactly. Much depends upon the movements of the prince. Should he be defeated after all, I suppose my brother will have to go abroad once more."