ed.

"Come, you can give a quip-word," said she. "Clarice was just a lump of
wood, that you could batter nought into,--might as well sit next a post.
Marabel has some brains, but they're so far in, there's no fetching 'em
forth. I declare I shall do somewhat one o' these days that shall shock
all the neighbourhood, only to make a diversion."

"I don't think I would," responded Amphillis. "You might find it ran
the wrong way."

"You'll do," said Agatha, laughing. "You are not jolly, but you're next
best to it."

"Whose is that empty place on the form?" asked Amphillis, looking
across.

"Oh, that's Master Norman's--Sir Godfrey's squire--he's away with him."

And Agatha, without any apparent reason, became suddenly silent.

When supper was over, the girls were called to spin, which they did in
the large hall, sitting round the fire with the two ladies and Perrote.
Amphillis, as a newcomer, was excused for that evening; and she sat
studying her neighbours and surroundings till Mistress Perrote
pronounced it bed-time. Then each girl rose and put by her spindle;
courtesied to the ladies, and wished them each "Good-even," receiving a
similar greeting; and the three filed out of the inner door after
Perrote, each possessing herself of a lighted candle as she passed a
window where they stood. At the solar landing they parted, Perrote and
Amphillis turning aside to their own tower, Marabel and Agatha going on
to the upper floor. [The solar was an intermediate storey, resembling
the French _entresol_.] Amphillis found, as she expected, that she was
to share the large blue bed and the yellow griffins with Perrote. The
latter proved a very silent bedfellow. Beyond showing Amphillis where
she was to place her various possessions, she said nothing at all; and
as soon as she had done this, she left the room, and did not reappear
for an hour or more. As Amphillis lay on her pillow, she heard an
indistinct sound of voices in an adjoining room, and once or twice, as
she fancied, a key turned in the lock. At length the voices grew
fainter, the hoot of the white owl as he flew past the turret window
scarcely roused her, and Amphillis was asleep--so sound asleep, that
when Perrote lay down by her side, she never made the discovery.

The next morning dawned on a beautiful summer day. Perrote roused her
young companion about four o'clock, with a reminder that if she were
late it would produce a bad impression upon Lady Fo