scription.

Emlyn certainly was very happy in her new quarters. Neither her lady nor
herself was arrayed with the rigid plainness exacted by Puritanism, and
many disapproving glances were cast upon the fair young pair, mistress
and maid, by the sterner matrons. Waiting women could not indulge in
much finery, but whatever breast knots and tiny curls beyond her little
tight cap could do, Emlyn did without fear of rebuke. Stead tried to
believe that the disapproving looks and words, by which Mrs. Lightfoot
intimated that she heard reports unfavourable to the household were only
due to the general distrust and dislike to the bright and lively Emlyn.
Mrs. Lightfoot was no Puritan herself, but her gossips were, and he
received her observations with a dull, stony look that vexed her, by
intimating that it was no business of hers.

Still it was borne in upon him that, good man as Mr. Henshaw certainly
was, the household was altered. It had been poverty and distress which
had led the Ayliffe family to give their young sister to a man so much
her elder, and inferior in position; and perhaps still more a desire to
confirm the Royalist footing in the city of Bristol. The lady's brothers
were penniless Cavaliers, and one of them made her house his home, and
a centre of Royalist plots and intelligences, which excited Emlyn very
much by the certainty that something was going on, though what it was,
of course, she did not know; and at any rate there was coming and going,
and all sorts of people were to be seen at the merchant's hospitable
table, all manner of news to be had here, there, and everywhere, with
which she delighted to entertain Steadfast, and show her own importance.

It was not often good news as regarded the Cavalier cause, for Cromwell
was fixing himself in his seat; and every endeavour to hatch a scheme
against him was frustrated, and led to the flight or death of those
concerned in it. However, so long as Emlyn had something to tell, it
made little difference whether the tidings were good or bad, whether
they concerned Admiral Blake's fleet, or her mistress's little Italian
greyhound. By-and-by however instead of Mrs. Henshaw, there came to
market Madam Ayliffe, her mother, a staid, elderly lady, all in black,
who might as well, Emlyn said, have been a Puritan.

She looked gravely at Stead, and said, "Young man, I am told that you
are well approved and trustworthy, and that my daughter suffers you to
walk home with