“Thou mayest well say so,” assented Barbara. “Dear heart! ’tis nigh upon five good years now, and I have not grown used to the lack of her even yet. Thou seest, moreover, he hath had sorrow upon sorrow. ’Twas but the year afore that Master Walter (a fictitious person) and Mistress Frances did depart (die); and then, two years gone, Mistress Kate, (a fictitious person). Ah, well-a-day! we be all mortal.”
“Thank we God therefore, good Bab,” said Marian quietly. “For we shall see them again the sooner. But if so be, Bab, that aught befel the Master, what should come of yonder rosebud?”
And Marian cast a significant look at Clare, who sat apparently engrossed with a mug full of syllabub.
“Humph! an’ I had the reins, I had driven my nag down another road,” returned Barbara. “Who but Master Robin (a fictitious person) and Mistress Thekla (a fictitious person) were meetest, trow? But lo! you! what doth Mistress Walter but indite a letter unto the Master, to note that whereas she hath never set eyes on the jewel—and whose fault was that, prithee?—so, an’ it liked Him above to do the thing thou wottest, she must needs have the floweret sent thither. And a cruel deal of fair words, how she loved and pined to see her, and more foolery belike. Marry La’kin! ere I had given her her will, I had seen her alongside of King Pharaoh at bottom o’ the Red Sea. But the Master, what did he, but write back and say that it should be even as she would. Happy woman be her dole, say I!”
And Barbara set down the milk-jug with a rough determinate air that must have hurt its feelings, had it possessed any.
“Mistress Walter! that is, the Lady—” (Note 3.)
“Ay—she,” said Barbara hastily, before the name could follow.
“Well, Bab, after all, methinks ’tis but like she should ask it. And if Master Robin be parson of that very same parish wherein she dwelleth, of a surety ye could never send the little one to him, away from her own mother?”
“Poor little soul! she is well mothered!” said Barbara ironically. “Never to set eyes on the child for six long years; and then, when Mistress Avery, dear heart! writ unto her how sweet and debonnaire (pretty, pleasing) the lily-bud grew, to mewl forth that it was so great a way, and her health so pitiful, that she must needs endure to bereave her of the happiness to come and see the same. Marry La’kin! call yon a mother!”
“But it is a great way, Bab.”