say and camlet. Sir Thomas received her with scrupulous deference, set
her on his right hand, and paid all kindly attention to her comfort.
For some time, however, it appeared doubtful whether anything on the
supper-table was good enough for the exacting young lady. Those around
her came at last to the conclusion that Gertrude's protestations
required considerable discount; since, after declaring that she "had no
stomach," and "could not pick a lark's bones," she finished by eating
more than Clare and Blanche put together. Jack, meanwhile, was
attending to his own personal wants, and took no notice of his bride,
beyond a cynical remark now and then, to which Gertrude returned a sharp
answer. It was evident that no love was lost between them.

As soon as supper was over, the bride went up to her own room, declaring
as she went that "if yon savage creature had the handling of her
gowns"--by which epithet Clare guessed that she meant Jennet--"there
would not be a rag left meet to put on"--and commanding, rather than
requesting, that Clare and Blanche would come and help her. Sir Thomas
looked surprised.

"Be these the manners of the great?" said he, too low for Jack to hear.

"Oh ay!" responded his wife, who was prepared to fall down at the feet
of her daughter-in-law, because she was _Lady_ Gertrude. "So commanding
is she!--as a very queen, I do protest. She hath no doubt been used to
great store of serving-maidens."

"That maketh not our daughters serving-maids," said Sir Thomas in an
annoyed tone.

"I would have thought her mother should have kept her in order," said
Rachel with acerbity. "If that woman were my daughter, she had need
look out."

Rachel did not know that Gertrude had no mother, and had been allowed to
do just as she pleased ever since she was ten years old.

Meanwhile, up-stairs, from trunk after trunk, under Gertrude's
directions--she did not help personally--Clare and Blanche were lifting
dresses in such quantities that Blanche wondered what they could have
cost, and innocent Clare imagined that their owner must have brought all
she expected to want for the term of her natural life.

"There!" said Gertrude, when the last trunk which held dresses was
emptied. "How many be they? Count. Seventeen--only seventeen? What
hath yon lither hilding [wicked girl] Audrey been about? There should
be nineteen; twenty, counting that I bear. I would I might be hanged if
she hath not left out, m