was absent; but the amusement
sometimes visible in Blanche's face was not likely to be pleasant to the
man whom Blanche had refused to marry.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well, Sir?" queried Jack one Saturday evening, as the family sat round
the hall fire after rear-supper. "My leave, an' I remember rightly,
shall end this week next but one. I must look shortly to be on my way
to London. What say you touching these little matters?"

"What little matters, Jack?" inquired his father.

"These bills, Sir."

"I cry thee mercy," said Sir Thomas dryly. "I counted those great
matters."

"Forsooth, no, Sir! There be few gentlemen in the Court that do owe so
little as I."

"The Court must be a rare ill place, belike."

"My good Sir!" said Jack condescendingly, "suffer me to say that you,
dwelling hereaway in the country, really can form no fantasy of the
manner of dwellers in the town. Of course, aught should serve here that
were decent and comely. But in the Court 'tis right needful that
fashion be observed. Go to!--these chairs we sit on, I dare say, have
been here these fifty years or more?"

"As long as I mind, Jack," said his father; "and that is somewhat over
fifty years."

"Truly, Sir. Now, no such a thing could not be done in the Court. A
chair that is ten years old is there fit for nought; a glass of five
years may not be set on board; and a gown you have worn one year must be
cast aside, whether it be done or no. The fashion choppeth and changeth
all one with the moon; nor can a gentleman wear aught that is not the
newest of his sort. Sir, the Queen's Highness carrieth ne'er a gown two
seasons, nor never rippeth--all hang by the walls."

It was the custom at that time to pull handsome dresses in pieces, and
use the materials for something else; but if a dress were not worth the
unpicking, it was hung up and left to its fate. Queen Elizabeth kept
all hers "by the walls;" she never gave a dress, and never took one in
pieces.

"Gentility, son--at least thy gentility--is costly matter," remarked Sir
Thomas.

"Good lack, Sir! You speak as though I had been an ill husband!" [an
extravagant man] cried Jack in an injured tone. "Look you, a gentleman
must have his raiment decent--"

"Three cloth suits, six shirts, and six pair of stockings should serve
for that, Jack, nor cost above twenty pound the year, and that free
reckoned," [a very handsome a