aced Christabel Hall!
She's not pretty a whit--without it be her hair; she hath fair hair that
is not over ill. But I marvel you should take a fantasy to her; there
is nought taking about the child."

"You alway consider whether folks be pretty, Gertrude."

"Of course I do. So doth everybody."

"I don't."

"Oh, you! You are not everybody, Mistress Dorrie."

"No, I am but one maid. But I would fain be acquaint with that child.
What said you were her name? All seems strange unto me, dwelling so
long with Grandmother; I have to make acquaintance with all the folks
when I return back home."

"Christabel Hall is her name; she is daughter to Roger Hall, the manager
at our works, and he and she dwell alone; she hath no mother."

"No mother, hath she?--and very like none to mother her. Ah, now I
conceive her looks."

"I marvel what you would be at, Pandora. Why, you and I have no mother,
but I never mewled and moaned thereafter."

"No, Gertrude, I think you never did."

"Aunt Grena hath seen to all we lacked, hath not she?"

"Aunt is very kind, and I cast no doubt she hath seen to all you
lacked." Pandora's tone was very quiet, with a faint pathos in it.

"Why, Dorrie, what lacked you that I did not?" responded Gertrude,
turning her laughing face towards her sister.

"Nothing that I could tell you, True. What manner of man is this Roger
Hall?"

"A right praisable man, Father saith, if it were not for one disorder in
him, that he would fain see amended: and so being, Dorrie, I scarce
think he shall be a-paid to have you much acquaint with his little maid,
sithence he hath very like infected her with his foolish opinions."

"What, is he of the new learning?"

Gertrude failed to see the sudden light which shot into Pandora's eyes,
as she dropped them on the cushion in the endeavour to smooth an
entangled corner of the fringe.

"That, and no less. You may guess what Father and Aunt reckon thereof."

"Father was that himself, Gertrude, only five years gone, when I went to
dwell in Lancashire."

"Pan, my dear heart, I do pray thee govern thy tongue. It maybe
signifies but little what folks believe up in the wilds and forests
yonder, and in especial amongst the witches: but bethink thee, we be
here within a day's journey or twain of the Court, where every man's
eyes and ears be all alive to see and hear news. What matters it what
happed afore Noah went into the ark? We be all good Catholics now, at