a-daisy! she would make
shipwreck of life and soul in a month. Well, for Clare, then--I give
thee to wit, Thekla, thou art that child's mother. Orige is not. She
never was worth her salt. And she never will be. So the sooner thou
win the maid hither, the better for her."

"She doth abide hither, Mistress Philippa, even now."

"Tush, child! I mean the sooner she weds with Arthur."

"Weds with Arthur!"

It was manifest that the idea had never entered Mrs Tremayne's head
until Philippa put it there.

"Prithee, wherefore no?" demanded the old lady coolly. "Orige means it.
Mercy on us, Thekla Rose! art thou gone wood?"

"Mrs Philippa! Who e'er told you my Lady Enville meant any such
thing?"

"The goose told me herself," said Philippa bluntly, with a short laugh.
"'Twas not in a civil fashion, Thekla. She said Arthur was good enough
for Clare; it recked not whom Clare wedded withal. Marry come up! if I
had not let mine head govern mine hands, I had fetched her a good crack
on the crown with my staff. It could ne'er have hurt her brain--she has
none. What were such women born for, do all the saints wit?--without it
were to learn other folk patience."

Thekla Tremayne was a woman, and a mother. She would have been more
than human if she had not felt hurt for this insult to her boy. Was
Clare, or anything else in the world, too good for her one darling?

"Come,--swallow it, Thekla, and have done," said Philippa. "And by way
of a morsel of sugar at after the wormwood, I will tell thee I do not
think Clare hates him. I studied her face."

"Mistress Philippa, you read faces so rarely, I would you could read
Lucrece Enville. Margaret, which is eldest of the three, is plain
reading; I conceive her conditions [understand her disposition] well.
But Lucrece hath posed me ever since I knew her."

"I will lay thee a broad shilling, child, I read her off like thou
shouldst a hornbook when I see her. Ay, I have some skill touching
faces: I have been seventy years at the work."

That evening, just before supper, the indefatigable old lady marched
into the hall at Enville Court. Lady Enville introduced her to Sir
Thomas and Mistress Rachel, and presented her step-daughters and Jack.
Philippa made her private comments on each.

"A worthy, honest man--not too sharp-sighted," she said of Sir Thomas to
herself. "And a good, sound-hearted woman"--of Mistress Rachel. "There
is a pickie, or I mistake," greeted Ja