is. "But truly I conceive
you not. Wherefore should I catch Master Hylton, and wherewith, and to
what end?"

"Amphillis, you shall be the death of me! My Lady shall snap off my
head at after supper, and the maid is not born that could help to laugh
at you. To what end? Why, for an husband, child! As to wherewith,
that I leave to thee." And Agatha concluded with another stifled
giggle.

"Agatha!" was all that the indignant Amphillis could say in answer. She
could hardly have told whether she felt more vexed or astonished. The
bare idea of such a thing, evidently quite familiar to Agatha, was
utterly new to her. "You never, surely, signify that any decent maid
could set herself to seek a man for an husband, like an angler with
fish?"

"They must be uncommon queer folks in Hertfordshire if thou art a sample
thereof," was the reply. "Why, for sure, I so signified. Thou must
have been bred up in a convent, Phyllis, or else tied to thy
grandmother's apron-string all thy life. Shall a maid ne'er have a bit
of fun, quotha?"

Amphillis made no answer, but finished her rissoles in silence, and
helped herself to a small pound-cake.

"Verily, some folks be born as old as their grandmothers," said Agatha,
accepting a fieldfare from the sewer, and squeezing a lemon over it. "I
would fain enjoy my youth, though I'm little like to do it whilst here I
am. Howbeit, it were sheer waste of stuff for any maid to set her heart
on Master Norman; he wist not how to discourse with maids. He should
have been a monk, in very sooth, for he is fit for nought no better.
There isn't a sparkle about him."

"He looks satisfied," said Amphillis, rather wistfully. She was wishing
that she felt so.

Agatha's answer was a puzzled stare, first at Amphillis, and then at Mr
Hylton.

"`Satisfied!'" she repeated, as if she wondered what the word could
mean. "Aren't we all satisfied?"

"Maybe you are," replied Amphillis, "though I reckon I have heard you
say what looked otherwise. You would fain have more life and jollity,
if I err not."

"Truly, therein you err not in no wise," answered Agatha, laughing
again, though in a more subdued manner than before. "I never loved to
dwell in a nunnery, and this house is little better. `Satisfied!'" she
said again, as though the word perplexed her. "I never thought of no
such a thing. Doth Master Norman look satisfied? What hath satisfied
him, trow?"

"That is it I would fain know,"