“Verily, curiosity is great part of Eve’s legacy to her daughters. Well, an’ thou must needs know, he is in the blue chamber; and thine aunt and Jennet be with him; and I have sent Abel to Bispham after the leech. (Doctor.) What more, an’t like the Lady Blanche?”
“Oh, what like is he?—and how old?—and is he well-favoured?—and—”
“Nay, let me have them by threes at the most. He is like a young man with black hair and a right wan face.—How old? Well, I would guess, an’ he were English, something over twenty years; but being Spanish, belike he is younger than so.—Well-favoured? That a man should look well-favoured, my Lady Blanche, but now come off a shipwreck, and his arm brake, and after fasting some forty hours,—methinks he should be a rare goodly one. Maybe a week’s dieting and good rest shall better his beauty.”
“Hath he any English?”
“But a little, and that somewhat droll: yet enough to make one conceive his wants. His father and mother both, he told me, were of the Court when King Philip dwelt here, and they have learned him some English for this his journey.”
“Doth his father live?”
“Woe worth the day! I asked him not. I knew not your Grace should desire to wit it.”
“And his mother? Hath he sisters?”
“Good lack! ask at him when thou seest him. Alack, poor lad!—his work is cut out, I see.”
“But you have not told me what shall come of them.”