All the girls laughed, Roisia and Olympias gently, Diana scornfully, Elaine with shrill hilarity.

“Ha, jolife!” cried the last-named young lady. “Heard one ever the like? Only wait till supper. Then thou shalt see this lovely lady, with the sweet, sorrowful eyes and the soft, low voice. Pure foy! I shall die with laughing, Clarice, if thou sayest anything more.”

“Hush!” said Diana, sharply and suddenly; but Elaine’s amusement had too much impetus on it to be stopped all at once. She was sitting with her back to the door, her mirthful laughter ringing through the room, when the door was suddenly flung open, and two ladies appeared behind it. The startled, terrified expression on the faces of Olympias and Roisia warned Clarice that something unpleasant was going to happen. Had Mistress Underdone a superior, between her and the Countess, whom to offend was a very grave affair? Clarice looked round with much interest and some trepidation at the new comers.

Note 1. Stykelane and Bakepuce—both most unpleasantly suggestive names—occur on the Fines Roll for 1254.

Note 2. Saluzzo.

Note 3. A common coarse silk, used both for dress and upholstery.

Chapter Two.

The mists clear away.

CONTENTS

 “Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te.”  Martial. 

One at least of the ladies who had disturbed Elaine’s hilarity did not look a person of whom it was necessary to be afraid. She was a matronly woman of middle age, bearing the remains of extreme beauty. She had a good-natured expression, and she rather shrank back, as if she were there on sufferance only. But the other, who came forward into the room, was tall, spare, upright, and angular, with a face which struck Clarice as looking very like verjuice.

“Agatha!” called the latter, sharply; and, laying her hand, not gently, on Elaine’s shoulder, she gave her a shake which rapidly reduced her to gravity.

“Ye weary, wretched giglots, what do ye thus laughing and tittering, when I have distinctly forbidden the same?—Agatha!—Know ye not that all ye be miserable sinners, and this lower world a vale of tears?—Agatha!”

“Truly, Cousin Meg,” observed the other lady, now coming forward, “methinks you go far to make it such.”

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