Yet the words had scarce died on her ears before she was oblivious of all save that it was a familial home figure who stood at the bottom of the stairs, one of the faces she trusted most in all the world which beamed out upon her, the hands which she knew would guard her through everything were stretched out to her, the lips with veritable love in them kissed the cheeks she did not withhold. Sir Amias stood by and gave the kindest smile she had seen from him, quite changing his pinched features, and he proposed to the two young people to go and walk in the garden together, letting them out into the square walled garden, very formal, but very bright and gay, and with a pleached alley to shelter them from the sun.
"Good old gentleman!" exclaimed Humfrey, holding the maiden's hand in his. "It is a shame to win such pleasure by feigning."
"As for that," sighed Cis, "I never know what is sooth here, and what am I save a living lie myself? O Humfrey! I am so weary of it all."
"Ah I would that I could bear thee home with me," he said, little prepared for this reception.
"Would that thou couldst! O that I were indeed thy sister, or that the writing in my swaddling bands had been washed out!—Nay," catching back her words, "I meant not that! I would not but belong to the dear Lady here. She says I comfort her more than any of them, and oh! she is—she is, there is no telling how sweet and how noble. It was only that the sight of thee awoke the yearning to be at home with mother and with father. Forget my folly, Humfrey."
"I cannot soon forget that Bridgefield seems to thee thy true home," he said, putting strong restraint on himself to say and do no more, while his heart throbbed with a violence unawakened by storm or Spaniard.
"Tell me of them all," she said. "I have heard naught of them since we left Tutbury, where at least we were in my Lord's house, and the dear old silver dog was on every sleeve. Ah! there he is, the trusty rogue."
And snatching up Humfrey's hat, which was fastened with a brooch of his crest in the fashion of the day, she kissed the familiar token. Then, however, she blushed and drew herself up, remembering the caution not to forget who she was, and with an assumption of more formal dignity, she said, "And how fares it with the good Mrs. Talbot?"
"Well, when I last heard," said Humfrey, "but I have not been at home. I only know what Will Cavendish and my Lord Talbot told me. I sent Diccon on to Bridgefield, and came out of the way to see you, lady," he concluded, with the same regard to actual circumstances that she had shown.
"Oh, that was good!" she whispered, and they both seemed to feel a certain safety in avoiding personal subjects. Humfrey had the history of his voyage to narrate—to tell of little Diccon's gallant doings, and to exalt Sir Francis Drake's skill and bravery, and at last to let it ooze out, under Cis's eager questioning, that when his captain had died of fever on the Hispaniola coast, and they had been overtaken by a tornado, Sir Francis had declared that it was Humfrey's skill and steadfastness which had saved the ship and crew.