thrown back and her lips curving in the triumphant mocking smile of a
great beauty looking upon them all as vassals.

"Down upon your knees," she cried, "and drink to me kneeling. From this
night all men must bend so--all men on whom I deign to cast my eyes."

CHAPTER V--"Not I," said she. "There thou mayst trust me. I would not
be found out."

She went no more a-hunting in boy's clothes, but from this time forward
wore brocades and paduasoys, fine lawn and lace. Her tirewoman was kept
so busily engaged upon making rich habits, fragrant waters and essences,
and so running at her bidding to change her gown or dress her head in
some new fashion, that her life was made to her a weighty burden to bear,
and also a painful one. Her place had before been an easy one but for
her mistress's choleric temper, but it was so no more. Never had young
lady been so exacting and so tempestuous when not pleased with the
adorning of her face and shape. In the presence of polite strangers,
whether ladies or gentlemen, Mistress Clorinda in these days chose to
chasten her language and give less rein to her fantastical passions, but
alone in her closet with her woman, if a riband did but not suit her
fancy, or a hoop not please, she did not fear to be as scurrilous as she
chose. In this discreet retirement she rapped out oaths and boxed her
woman's ears with a vigorous hand, tore off her gowns and stamped them
beneath her feet, or flung pots of pomade at the poor woman's head. She
took these freedoms with such a readiness and spirit that she was served
with a despatch and humbleness scarcely to be equalled, and, it is
certain, never excelled.

The high courage and undaunted will which had been the engines she had
used to gain her will from her infant years aided her in these days to
carry out what her keen mind and woman's wit had designed, which was to
take the county by storm with her beauty, and reign toast and enslaver
until such time as she won the prize of a husband of rich estates and
notable rank.

It was soon bruited abroad, to the amazement of the county, that Mistress
Clorinda Wildairs had changed her strange and unseemly habits of life,
and had become as much a young lady of fashion and breeding as her birth
and charm demanded. This was first made known by her appearing one
Sunday morning at church, accompanied--as though attended with a retinue
of servitors--by Mistress Wimpole and her two sisters, whose pl