and laughed again, but with less
mocking in her laughter.

"What do you know of my heart, Anne?" she said. "Till late I did not
know it beat, myself. My lord says 'tis a great one and noble, but I
know 'tis his own that is so. Have I done honestly by him, Anne, as I
told you I would? Have I been fair in my bargain--as fair as an honest
man, and not a puling, slippery woman."

"You have been a great lady," Anne answered, her great dull, soft eyes
filling with slow tears as she gazed at her. "He says that you have
given to him a year of Heaven, and that you seem to him like some
archangel--for the lower angels seem not high enough to set beside you."

"'Tis as I said--'tis his heart that is noble," said Clorinda. "But I
vowed it should be so. He paid--he paid!"

The country saw her lord's happiness as the town had done, and wondered
at it no less. The manor was thrown open, and guests came down from
town; great dinners and balls being given, at which all the country saw
the mistress reign at her consort's side with such a grace as no lady
ever had worn before. Sir Jeoffry, appearing at these assemblies, was so
amazed that he forgot to muddle himself with drink, in gazing at his
daughter and following her in all her movements.

"Look at her!" he said to his old boon companions and hers, who were as
much awed as he. "Lord! who would think she was the strapping, handsome
shrew that swore, and sang men's songs to us, and rode to the hunt in
breeches."

He was awed at the thought of paying fatherly visits to her house, and
would have kept away, but that she was kind to him in the way he was best
able to understand.

"I am country-bred, and have not the manners of your town men, my lady,"
he said to her, as he sat with her alone on one of the first mornings he
spent with her in her private apartment. "I am used to rap out an oath
or an ill-mannered word when it comes to me. Dunstanwolde has weaned you
of hearing such things--and I am too old a dog to change."

"Wouldst have thought I was too old to change," answered she, "but I was
not. Did I not tell thee I would be a great lady. There is naught a man
or woman cannot learn who hath the wit."

"Thou hadst it, Clo," said Sir Jeoffry, gazing at her with a sort of slow
wonder. "Thou hadst it. If thou hadst not--!" He paused, and shook his
head, and there was a rough emotion in his coarse face. "I was not the
man to have made aught but a baggage of thee