Before any conversation beyond the mere introductions could occur, in trotted Mrs Rose.
“Mistress Philippa, you be the fairest ointment for the eyen that I have seen these many days!” said the lively little Flemish lady. “Ma foi! I do feel myself run back, the half of my life, but to look on you. I am a young woman once again.”
“Old friend, we be both of us aged women,” said Philippa.
“And it is true!” said Mrs Rose. “That will say, the joints be stiff, and the legs be weakened, and the fatigue is more and quicker: but I find not that thing within me, that men call my soul, to grow stiff nor weak. I laugh, I weep, I am astonied,—just all same as fifty years since. See you?”
“Ah! you have kept much of the childly heart,” answered Philippa smiling. “But for me, the main thing with me that is not stiff nor weak in me is anger and grief. Men be such flat fools—and women worser, if worse can be.”
Blanche opened her eyes in amazement Lysken looked amused.
“Ah, good Mistress Philippa, I am one of the fools,” said Mrs Rose with great simplicity. “I alway have so been.”
“Nay, flog me with a discipline if you are!” returned Philippa heartily. “I meant not you, old friend. You are not by one-tenth part so much as—” Her eye fell on Blanche. “Come, I name none.—And thou art Frank Avery’s daughter?” she added, turning suddenly to Lysken. “Come hither, Frances, and leave me look on thee.”
“My name is not Frances, good Mistress,” replied Lysken, coming forward with a smile.
“Isoult, then? It should be one or the other.”