There was a burst of eager applause.
"It was a quaint old song when I was young," said Madam Wetherill. "Then there are some pretty ones of Will Shakespere's."
"This is what I like," began Primrose.
"Tell me not, sweet, I am unkinde."
She sang it with deep and true feeling, Lovelace's immortal song. And she moved them all by her rendering of the last two lines in her proud young voice—
"I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more."
Then Mistress Kent would have them come out for curds and cream and floating islands, and they planned a chestnutting after the first frost came. They were merry and happy, even if the world was full of sorrow.
Yet it seemed so mysterious to Primrose that the songs should be so much about love, and that stories were written and wars made and kingdoms lost for its sake. What was it? No, she did not want to know, either. And just now she felt infinitely sorry for Rachel. Come what might, Andrew would not marry her. How she could tell she did not know, but she felt the certainty.
"Do not sit there by the window, Primrose, or thou wilt get moon-struck and silly. And young girls should get beauty sleep. Come to bed at once," said Madam Wetherill.
But after all she admitted to herself that Primrose was not urgently in need of beauty sleep.