tail of the noble
science of dinner, as well in preparation for the table, as in
arrangement over it, and in distribution around it to knights, and
squires, and ghostly friars,--these are female virtues: but valour--why
who ever heard----?"

"She is the all in all," said brother Michael, "gentle as a ring-dove,
yet high-soaring as a falcon: humble below her deserving, yet deserving
beyond the estimate of panegyric: an exact economist in all superfluity,
yet a most bountiful dispenser in all liberality: the chief regulator of
her household, the fairest pillar of her hall, and the sweetest blossom
of her bower: having, in all opposite proposings, sense to understand,
judgment to weigh, discretion to choose, firmness to undertake,
diligence to conduct, perseverance to accomplish, and resolution to
maintain. For obedience to her husband, that is not to be tried till
she has one: for faith in her confessor, she has as much as the law
prescribes: for embroidery an Arachne: for music a Siren: and for
pickling and preserving, did not one of her jars of sugared apricots
give you your last surfeit at Arlingford Castle?"

"Call you that preserving?" said the little friar; "I call it
destroying. Call you it pickling? Truly it pickled me. My life was saved
by miracle."

"By canary," said brother Michael. "Canary is the only life preserver,
the true aurum potabile, the universal panacea for all diseases, thirst,
and short life. Your life was saved by canary."

"Indeed, reverend father," said Sir Ralph, "if the young lady be half
what you describe, she must be a paragon: but your commending her for
valour does somewhat amaze me."

"She can fence," said the little friar, "and draw the long bow, and play
at singlestick and quarter-staff."

"Yet mark you," said brother Michael, "not like a virago or a hoyden,
or one that would crack a serving-man's head for spilling gravy on her
ruff, but with such womanly grace and temperate self-command as if
those manly exercises belonged to her only, and were become for her sake
feminine."

"You incite me," said Sir Ralph, "to view her more nearly. That madcap
earl found me other employment than to remark her in the chapel."

"The earl is a worthy peer," said brother Michael; "he is worth any
fourteen earls on this side Trent, and any seven on the other." (The
reader will please to remember that Rubygill Abbey was north of Trent.)

"His mettle will be tried," said Sir Ralph. "There is many