y cramoisie! [crimson velvet!] the fairest gown
I have! And"--with an oath--"if she hath put in my blue taffata,
broidered with seed-pearl, I would I might serve as a kitchener!"

Rachel walked in while Gertrude was speaking.

"Surely you lack no more!" said Blanche. "Here be seven velvet gowns,
and four of satin!"

"Enow for you, belike!" answered Gertrude, with a sneer.

"Enow for any Christian woman, Niece, and at the least ten too many,"
said Rachel severely.

"Lack-a-daisy!--you have dwelt so long hereaway in this wilderness, you
wit not what lacketh for decency in apparel," returned Gertrude
irreverently, greatly scandalising both her sisters-in-law by her
disrespect to Aunt Rachel. "How should I make seventeen gowns serve for
a month?"

"If you don a new every second day," said Rachel, "there shall be two
left over at the end thereof."

Gertrude stared at her for a moment, then broke into loud laughter.

"Good heart, if she think not they be all of a sort! Why, look you
here--this is a riding gown, and this a junketing gown, and this a
night-gown [evening dress]. Two left over, quotha!"

"I would fain, Niece," said Rachel gravely, "you had paid as much note
unto the adorning of your soul as you have to that of your body. You
know 'tis writ--but may be 'tis not the fashion to read God's Word now
o' days?"

"In church, of course," replied Gertrude. "Only Puritans read it out of
church."

"You be no Puritan, trow?"

"Gramercy! God defend me therefrom!"

"Good lack! 'tis the first time I heard ever a woman--without she were a
black Papist--pray God defend her from reading of His Word. Well,
Niece, may be He will hear you. Howbeit, 'tis writ yonder that a meek
spirit and a quiet is of much worth in His sight. I count you left that
behind at Chester, with Audrey and the two gowns that lack?" [That are
wanting.]

"I would you did not call me Niece!" responded Gertrude in a querulous
tone. "'Tis too-too [exceedingly] ancient. No parties of any sort do
now call as of old [Note 2],--`Sister,' or `Daughter,' or `Niece'."

"Dear heart! Pray you, what would your Ladyship by your good-will be
called?"

"Oh, Gertrude, for sure. 'Tis a decent name--not an ugsome [ugly]
old-fashioned, such as be Margaret, or Cicely, or Anne."

"'Tis not old-fashioned, in good sooth," said Rachel satirically; "I
ne'er heard it afore, nor know I from what tongue it cometh. Then--as I
pick out of your talk--d