“I would judge from thy face,” quoth she, “if thou art the right lad come, or they have changed thee in London town. Our Walter used to have his father’s eyes and his mother’s mouth. Well, I suppose thou art: but I should scantly have guessed it from thy talk.”
“Walter,” softly saith Mother, “thy father should never have so dealt when he were of thy years.”
“Lack-a-daisy! I would have thought the world was turning round,” quoth Aunt Joyce, “had I ever heard such a speech of Aubrey at any years whatsoever.”
Father listed this with some diversion, as methought from the set of his lips.
“Well, I am not as good as Father,” saith Wat.
“Amen!” quoth Aunt Joyce.
“But, Aunt, you are hard on a man. See you not, all the fellows think you a coward if you dare not spend freely and act boldly? Ay, and a miser belike.”
“Is it worser to be thought a coward than to be one?” saith Father.
“Who be ‘all the fellows’?” saith Aunt Joyce. “My Lord of Burleigh and my Lord Hunsdon and Sir Francis Walsingham, I’ll warrant you.”
“Now, Aunt!” saith Walter. “Not grave old men like they! My Lord of Oxenford, that is best-dressed man of all the Court, and spendeth an hundred pound by the year in gloves and perfumes only—”