away from the moment he
clapped eyes on thee."

"That I knew better than thee, Dad," said the beauty; "and I saw that he
could not have done it if he had tried. If there comes no richer,
younger great gentleman, he shall marry me."

"Thou hast a sharp eye and a keen wit," said Sir Jeoffry, looking askance
at her with a new maggot in his brain. "Wouldst never play the fool, I
warrant. They will press thee hard and 'twill be hard to withstand their
love-making, but I shall never have to mount and ride off with pistols in
my holsters to bring back a man and make him marry thee, as Chris Crowell
had to do for his youngest wench. Thou wouldst never play the fool, I
warrant--wouldst thou, Clo?"

She tossed her head and laughed like a young scornful devil, showing her
white pearl teeth between her lips' scarlet.

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

She played her part as triumphant beauty so successfully that the
cleverest managing mother in the universe could not have bettered her
position. Gallants brawled for her; honest men fell at her feet;
romantic swains wrote verses to her, praising her eyes, her delicate
bosom, the carnation of her cheek, and the awful majesty of her mien. In
every revel she was queen, in every contest of beauties Venus, in every
spectacle of triumph empress of them all.

The Earl of Dunstanwolde, who had the oldest name and the richest estates
in his own county and the six adjoining ones, who, having made a love-
match in his prime, and lost wife and heir but a year after his nuptials,
had been the despair of every maid and mother who knew him, because he
would not be melted to a marriageable mood. After the hunt ball this
mourning nobleman, who was by this time of ripe years, had appeared in
the world again as he had not done for many years. Before many months
had elapsed, it was known that his admiration of the new beauty was
confessed, and it was believed that he but waited further knowledge of
her to advance to the point of laying his title and estates at her feet.

But though, two years before, the entire county would have rated low
indeed the wit and foresight of the man who had even hinted the
possibility of such honour and good fortune being in prospect for the
young lady, so great was Mistress Clorinda's brilliant and noble beauty,
and with such majesty she bore herself in these times, that there were
even those who doubted whether