having, for a staid and prudent matron, a lively
interest in his ways. It seemed, truly--if one must believe her long-
winded stories--that no duchess under seventy had escaped weeping for him
and losing rest, and that ladies of all ranks had committed follies for
his sake.

Mistress Anne, having led her to this fruitful subject, would sit and
listen, bending over her embroidery frame with strange emotions, causing
her virgin breast to ache with their swelling. She would lie awake at
night thinking in the dark, with her heart beating. Surely, surely there
was no other man on earth who was so fitted to Clorinda, and to whom it
was so suited that this empress should give her charms. Surely no woman,
however beautiful or proud, could dismiss his suit when he pressed it.
And then, poor woman, her imagination strove to paint the splendour of
their mutual love, though of such love she knew so little. But it must,
in sooth, be bliss and rapture; and perchance, was her humble thought,
she might see it from afar, and hear of it. And when they went to court,
and Clorinda had a great mansion in town, and many servants who needed a
housewife's eye upon their doings to restrain them from wastefulness and
riot, might it not chance to be that if she served well now, and had the
courage to plead with her then, she might be permitted to serve her
there, living quite apart in some quiet corner of the house. And then
her wild thoughts would go so far that she would dream--reddening at her
own boldness--of a child who might be born to them, a lordly infant son
and heir, whose eyes might be blue and winning, and his hair in great
fair locks, and whom she might nurse and tend and be a slave to--and
love--and love--and love, and who might end by knowing she was his tender
servant, always to be counted on, and might look at her with that wooing,
laughing glance, and even love her too.

The night Clorinda laid her commands upon Mistress Wimpole concerning the
coming of Sir John Oxon, that matron, after receiving them, hurried to
her other charges, flurried and full of talk, and poured forth her wonder
and admiration at length.

"She is a wondrous lady!" she said--"she is indeed! It is not alone her
beauty, but her spirit and her wit. Mark you how she sees all things and
lets none pass, and can lay a plan as prudent as any lady old enough to
be twice her mother. She knows all the ways of the world of fashion, and
will guard herself a