"Come you in, you two desperate malignants!" he said, and his eyes were dancing with the jest that he was playing upon his mother.
Rupert and Merrylips stole quietly into the room. It was a long parlor, with lozenge-shaped panes in the windows and faded tapestry upon the walls. Midway of the room, by a cheery fire, sat a portly, middle-aged gentlewoman in a gown of silk tabby. Near her two young girls, with chestnut hair, were busy with embroidery frames.
At sight of the two children all three exclaimed aloud.
"Dick, thou varlet!" cried the old gentlewoman.
"Are these your ruffian Cavaliers?" said the elder, and taller, of the two girls.
But the younger, a sweet, rosy lass, of much the same age as Merrylips' own sister Puss, sprang to her feet.
"Why," she cried, "'tis surely the little lad whereof Dick told us—the child that tended him that black night at Monksfield. Oh, mother! Look at his shoes, all worn to rags! Oh, poor little sweetheart!"
She came straight to Merrylips, and bent and would have kissed her, but Merrylips threw up her elbow, just like a bad-mannered little boy. Somehow, before these folk, who were gentlewomen, like her godmother, she felt ashamed of her boy's dress, as she had never been among men, and she longed to hide her head.
While Merrylips stood shrinking at Rupert's side, she saw that Fowell whispered something to the older girl, who laughed aloud.
"Verily, thou art a gallant master of revels, Dick!" she cried, and in her turn came rustling to Merrylips.