Lady Sybil gave her easy lessons in surgery and the use of simples. Sometimes she even let her be present when she herself dressed the hurts or prescribed for the ills of the poor folk of Cuckstead, the little hamlet that lay hard by the walls of Larkland. This art Merrylips was glad to be taught, and she spoke often of the use it would be to her when she was a grown lad and went to the wars.
Somehow, when once she had put this secret hope into words and her godmother had not laughed, Merrylips began herself to feel that such a thought was babyish. In those quiet days at Larkland she began to grow up and to realize, with bitter disappointment, that she was likely to grow up a girl. She talked of this sometimes at twilight with her godmother, and was much comforted.
"For thou mayst have all the true virtues of a lad, dear little heart," Lady Sybil would say. "Thou canst be brave and truthful as any of thy brothers, not fearing to bear hard knocks, but fearing to bestow them on any that be weaker than thyself. I do not chide thee that thou wouldst be a man, my Merrylips, but I would have thee more than that—a gentleman."
So Merrylips tried to be a gentleman. She tried not to show a naughty temper, nor speak rudely to the serving-folk, but to be courteous and considerate always of those about her. And at times she found this a far harder task than sewing seams or reading Latin.
But life at Larkland was far from being all tasks. There were hours when Lady Sybil played to Merrylips upon the lute or the virginals and sang sweet old songs. There were other hours, while they sat together at their sewing, when Lady Sybil told wondrous tales of what she had done when she lived with her father in Paris and at the Hague and in great London town.
"I had no brothers as thou hast, Merrylips," said Lady Sybil, "but I had one dear sister, Venetia, and a sad madcap she was! By times thou dost mind me of her, honey."
One wintry afternoon, when she had talked for a long time of the Lady Venetia's pranks and plays in their girlhood together, Lady Sybil fetched a miniature from a cabinet in her chamber and showed it to Merrylips. It was the portrait of a girl of much the same age as sister Puss, Merrylips thought—a beautiful girl, with soft brown hair parted from a white forehead, and eyes that laughed, and a finger laid upon her rosy lips. On the upraised finger, Merrylips noticed, was an odd ring of two hearts entwined, wrought in what seemed dull silver.
"This is my sister Venetia," said Lady Sybil. "So she looked at eighteen, save that she was fairer than any picture."
"She is not so fair as you, godmother mine!" Merrylips declared.
Lady Sybil smiled in answer, but faintly. Indeed, as she looked upon the picture, she sighed.