Master Lee had departed, the squire had forgotten the accident of his children's untoward behaviour, and Dick and Nan, surfeited with their success, had tried some new feint, some fresh excitement of paction and rupture-with Goody Grizel never tired of protesting at their flights and furies, and Goodman Gil just doggedly shunning their perpetual flutter.

'No good in this work, Goodwife,' he growled. 'Men and women should listen, not chatter.'

'Nay, now, Goodman Gil, women at least must speak their minds, else what were their tongues given them for; an' you got them changed few would listen and learn like you, Goodman Gil. Is it the mushrooms you'd toss in the saucepan? wont they poison the whole household, and the master to boot, though he does know a main of antidotes, never found when wanted, like my keys. Wounds! my head is buzzing with this affray; and there is Mistress Cicely, dear soul, going about like a love-lorn lass, or a jilted jill who wears the willow, bearing the whole weight, and itching to cry her eyes out if nobody saw, for a bit of silly nonsense, by all the world as any barn-door frolic, which she undertook off-hand at other folks' instance, though she mun endure the entire charge. A murrain upon Master Dick to bring my girls into disgrace! Ay! women mun chatter, Goodman, and men mun hear them, lest worse hap befall creation.'

'It was a thorn,' moaned Cicely, haunting the

tangled paths to the Cam; and there is ill luck in the gift of a thorn, as all but clerkly minds consider. What shall I do if harm chance to this man? Ah, me! Why did I meddle with his apathy? He should have remained a stock or a stone for me. Now I have marred his skin, and I may have crossed his fortunes-I, who would be blessed and not banned. I was not a modest maiden. He will deem scorn

fully of my sex for me. I deserve to be punished. Alake! the day.'

CHAPTER VI.

'A MOST BRAVE AND SUMPTUOUS MASK FOR A

PRIVATE COMPANIE,'

ICELY'S crime and contrition were

out of head; that event, as well as all others, was eclipsed by the great affair of the summer at Barne-elms. Dick Yorke was detained some weeks on my Lord of Norfolk's business at Cambridge, and in the chief bestowal of his leisure on his rustical cousins, from being coaxed and importuned to describe again and again the last gala performed by court favour of which he was cognizant, it came that the young man and the sisters were primed to enact a mask of three, of their own, in their family circleon a lower scale than the performance of the 'Arcades' of Milton, at Horton, by the Countess of Derby's grandchildren; or the representation of 'Comus' by the same Bridgewater brothers and sisters whose benighted woodland walk gave rise to the mighty poet's dream, at Ludlow Castle in 1634.

Master Yorke, enamoured of all that was classical

and intellectual, readily consented to the show and pleasure, although his empty exchequer witnessed against it and demanded a pinching economy in the details. But once on a while, and that his lasses might join in the refined sports of their rank with a fellow in years and station and a near kinsman -true he could ill afford it, and also Master Dyer and some of the authorities of the congregation might object as to to a worldly and light amusement-but he should stint the expenses, and have but an audience of one or two friends, and he should select a moral theme fit to impart a lesson in virtue rather than to serve as an incentive to vice. Moreover, he reckoned these plays as not only in themselves blameless, but as supported by the highest authority, although they might be abused to lewd purposes, and, God wot, what custom did not suffer the same treatment. Master Dyer and the congregation censured music and dancing, yet if they studied Scripture they would find that Miriam and her gossips went out to meet Moses with timbrels and dances; and the brother of the Prodigal Son was startled on his return to his father's house where the lost was found-by the sound of praying and psalmody? No, though in verity that was a goodly sound, but by the blatant noise of this said music and dancing. He, Master Yorke, should rule his own household. Let Master Dyer or a deputation of unlettered tradesmen and yeomen manage their assembly, or let them look to their own tokens,

weights and measures, their chalk-mixed flour, and porridge-hearted butter, if they craved the conduct of aught else. He did not mean to slander his neighbours and brother-worshippers; God forbid ! on the contrary, he hoped to get good Master Dyer, who was a man of parts and education, to witness and criticise the spectacle, but he would not deprive his lasses of their holiday for an ignorant scruple. And Master Dyer and some of his members having broadly hinted their exceptions, the squire grew yet more resolute in his approbation—a quiet obstinacy being no slight feature in his tranquil, contemplative nature.

6

Master Yorke was only sorry that he was curtailed in means, time, and company; he should have dearly liked to have overlooked every arrangement— ray, even to have composed the piece (but then Cicely and Nan must have waited years for their entertainment) to be used on their temporary stage. He should have had it fairly writ out, and printed by his friend here, Sibert, to whom Erasmus had intrusted his small tract de conscribendis epistolis,' of which he had of course a copy; and he would have further sent it to his old erony, Nicholas Ling, to be sold to admiring dabblers in the fine arts at his shop at the north-west doore of Paul's, or to figure as a ware in request on the much-studied shelves of Hugh Singleton at the sign of the Gylden Tunne in Creed-lane, near unto Ludgate. He would have had a wider scene, a more elaborate effort of genius;

H