“Ay. There’s a gentlewoman i’ th’ bower to see thee.”
“Nay,—a gentlewoman! Who can it be?”
“I’ve told thee all I know. Hoo (she) wanted Mistress Clare; and I said hoo were down at th’ parsonage; then hoo said, ‘Is Barbara Polwhele here?’ And I said, ‘Ay, hoo’s come o’er to fot (fetch) somewhat for th’ young mistresses.’ So hoo said, ‘Then I’ll speak wi’ her.’ So I took her to my Lady, for I see hoo were a gentlewoman; and hoo’s i’ th’ bower.”
“I wis nought of her,” said Barbara. “I never looked to see none here that I know.”
“Well, thou’d best go to her,” decided Jennet Barbara hurried down, and found an old silver-haired lady sitting with Lady Enville, and addressed by her with marked deference.
“Well, Bab!” said the old lady, who was brisk enough for her years; “thou dost not seem no younger since I saw thee in Cornwall, and the mirror yonder saith neither am I.”
“Marry La’kin! but if I thought it metely possible, I would say it were surely Mistress Philippa Basset!”
“I will not confute thee, Bab, though it be but metely possible,” said the lively old lady, laughing. “I came to see the child Clare; but hearing she was hence, I then demanded thee. I will go down to the parsonage anon. I would like well to see Robin, and Thekla likewise.”
“Eh, Mistress Philippa! but there be great and sore changes sithence you were used to come unto the Lamb to see Mistress Avery!”
“Go to, Barbara! Hast dwelt sixty years, more or less, in this world, and but now found out that all things therein be changeable? What be thy changes to mine? Child, there is not a soul that I loved in those days when Isoult dwelt in the Minories, that is not now with God in Heaven. Not a soul! Fifty years gone, brethren and sisters, there were seven of us. All gone, save me!—a dry old bough, that sticketh yet upon the tree whence all the fair green shoots have been lopped away. And I the eldest of all! The ways of God’s Providence be strange.”