o
hell!"

And this choice volley was with such spirit and fury poured forth, that
Sir Jeoffry let his hand drop from the bell, fell into a great burst of
laughter, and stood thus roaring while she beat him and shrieked and
stormed.

The servants, hearing the jangled bell, attracted by the tumult, and of a
sudden missing Mistress Clorinda, ran in consternation to the hall, and
there beheld this truly pretty sight--Miss beating her father's legs, and
tearing at him tooth and nail, while he stood shouting with laughter as
if he would split his sides.

"Who is the little cockatrice?" he cried, the tears streaming down his
florid cheeks. "Who is the young she-devil? Ods bodikins, who is she?"

For a second or so the servants stared at each other aghast, not knowing
what to say, or venturing to utter a word; and then the nurse, who had
come up panting, dared to gasp forth the truth.

"'Tis Mistress Clorinda, Sir Jeoffry," she stammered--"my lady's last
infant--the one of whom she died in childbed."

His big laugh broke in two, as one might say. He looked down at the
young fury and stared. She was out of breath with beating him, and had
ceased and fallen back apace, and was staring up at him also, breathing
defiance and hatred. Her big black eyes were flames, her head was thrown
up and back, her cheeks were blood scarlet, and her great crop of crow-
black hair stood out about her beauteous, wicked little virago face, as
if it might change into Medusa's snakes.

"Damn thee!" she shrieked at him again. "I'll kill thee, devil!"

Sir Jeoffry broke into his big laugh afresh.

"Clorinda do they call thee, wench?" he said. "Jeoffry thou shouldst
have been but for thy mother's folly. A fiercer little devil for thy
size I never saw--nor a handsomer one."

And he seized her from where she stood, and held her at his big arms'
length, gazing at her uncanny beauty with looks that took her in from
head to foot.

CHAPTER III--Wherein Sir Jeoffry's boon companions drink a toast

Her beauty of face, her fine body, her strength of limb, and great growth
for her age, would have pleased him if she had possessed no other
attraction, but the daring of her fury and her stable-boy breeding so
amused him and suited his roystering tastes that he took to her as the
finest plaything in the world.

He set her on the floor, forgetting his coursing, and would have made
friends with her, but at first she would have none of him