Blanche and Lysken presented themselves. Arthur and
Clare were not to be found. Philippa's keen, quick eyes surveyed the
two girls as they entered, and mentally took stock of both.

"A vain, giddy goose!" was her rapid estimate of Blanche; wherein, if
she did Blanche a little injustice, there was some element of truth.
"Calm and deep, like a river," she said to herself of Lysken: and there
she judged rightly enough.

Before any conversation beyond the mere introductions could occur, in
trotted Mrs Rose.

"Mistress Philippa, you be the fairest ointment for the eyen that I have
seen these many days!" said the lively little Flemish lady. "_Ma foi_!
I do feel myself run back, the half of my life, but to look on you. I
am a young woman once again."

"Old friend, we be both of us aged women," said Philippa.

"And it is true!" said Mrs Rose. "That will say, the joints be stiff,
and the legs be weakened, and the fatigue is more and quicker: but I
find not that thing within me, that men call my soul, to grow stiff nor
weak. I laugh, I weep, I am astonied,--just all same as fifty years
since. See you?"

"Ah! you have kept much of the childly heart," answered Philippa
smiling. "But for me, the main thing with me that is not stiff nor weak
in me is anger and grief. Men be such flat fools--and women worser, if
worse can be."

Blanche opened her eyes in amazement Lysken looked amused.

"Ah, good Mistress Philippa, I am one of the fools," said Mrs Rose with
great simplicity. "I alway have so been."

"Nay, _flog_ me with a discipline if you are!" returned Philippa
heartily. "I meant not you, old friend. You are not by one-tenth part
so much as--" Her eye fell on Blanche. "Come, I name none.--And thou
art Frank Avery's daughter?" she added, turning suddenly to Lysken.
"Come hither, Frances, and leave me look on thee."

"My name is not Frances, good Mistress," replied Lysken, coming forward
with a smile.

"Isoult, then? It should be one or the other."

"Nay--it is Elizabeth," said Lysken, with a shake of her head.

"More shame for thee," retorted Philippa jokingly. "What business had
any to call thee Elizabeth?"

"My father's mother was Lysken Klaas."

"Good.--Well, Thekla, I have looked this face o'er, and I can read no
Avery therein."

"'Tis all deep down in the heart," said Mrs Tremayne.

"The best place for it," replied Philippa. "Thou wilt do, child, as
methinks. I would say it were easier to