the skeins to-day. I'll try no more
with't."

"Fie! For shame, Mary Connynge," replied Lady Catharine Knollys,
reprovingly. "So far from better temperance of speech, didst ever hear
of the virtue of perseverance? Now, for my own part--"

"And what, for your own part? Have I no eyes to see that thou'rt
puttering over the same corner this last half hour? What is it thou art
making to-day?"

The Lady Catharine paused for a moment and held her embroidery frame
away from her at arm's length, looking at it with brow puckering into a
perplexed frown.

"I was working a knight," said she. "A tall one--"

"Yes, a tall one, with yellow hair, I warrant."

"Why, so it was. I was but seeking floss of the right hue, and found it
difficult."

"And with blue eyes?"

"True; or perhaps gray. I could not state which. I had naught in my box
would serve to suit me for the eyes. But how know you this, Mary
Connynge?" asked the Lady Catharine.

"Because I was making some such knight for myself," replied the other.
"See! He was to have been tall, of good figure, wearing a wide hat and
plume withal. But lest I spoil him, my knight--now a plague take me
indeed if I do not ruin him complete!" So saying, she drew with vengeful
fingers at the intricately woven silks until she had indeed undone all
that had gone before.

"Nay, nay! Mary Connynge! Do not so!" replied Lady Catharine in
expostulation. "The poor knight, how could he help himself? Why, as for
mine, though I find him not all I could wish, I'll e'en be patient as I
may, and seek if I may not mend him. These knights, you know, are most
difficult. 'Tis hard to make them perfect."

Mary Connynge sat with her hands in her lap, looking idly out of the
window and scarce heeding the despoiled fabric which lay on her lap.
"Come, confess, Lady Kitty," said she at length, turning toward her
friend. "Wert not trying to copy a knight of a hedge-row after all? Did
not a certain tall young knight, with eyes of blue, or gray, or the
like, give pattern for your sampler while you were broidering to-day?"

"Fie! For shame!" again replied Lady Catharine, flushing none the less.
"Rather ask, does not such a thought come over thine own broidering? But
as to the hedge-row, surely the gentleman explained it all proper
enough; and I am sure--yes, I am very sure--that my brother Charles had
quite approved of my giving the injured young man the lift in the
coach--"

"Provided that your Brother Cha