“And if thou overtop him,” she made answer, “all shall see it but thyself. Climb on, Nell. Thou wilt not grow giddy so long as thine eyes be turned above.”
I am so glad that Aunt Joyce seeth thus touching Nym!
Selwick Hall, October ye ii.
There goeth my first two pence for a blank week. In good sooth, I have been in ill case to write. This weary Nym would in no wise leave me be, but went to Anstace and Hal, and gat their instance (persuaded them to intercede) unto Father and Mother. Which did send for me, and would know at me if I list to wed with Nym or no. And verily, so bashful am I, and afeared to speak when I am took on the sudden thus, that I count they gat not much of me, but were something troubled to make out what I would be at. Nor wis I what should have befallen (not for that Father nor Mother were ever so little hard unto me, good lack! but only that I was stupid), had not Aunt Joyce come in, who no sooner saw how matters stood than she up and spake for me.
“Now, Aubrey and Lettice,” saith she, “both of you, fall a-catechising me in the stead of Nell. The maid hath no list to wed with Nym Lewthwaite, and hath told me so much aforetime. Leave her be, and send him away the other side of Jericho, where he belongs, and let him, an’ he list, fetch back a Syrian maiden with a horn o’er her forehead and a ring of her nose.”
“Wherefore didst thou not tell us so much, Nell, my lass?” saith Father right kindlily, laying of his hand on my shoulder.
But in the stead of answering him thankfully, as a dutiful daughter should, what did I but burst forth o’ crying, as though he had been angered with me: yea, nor might I stop the same, but went on, truly I knew not wherefore, till Mother came up and put her arms around me, and hushed me as she wont to do when I was a little child.
“The poor child is o’erwrought,” quoth she, tenderly. “Let us leave her be, Aubrey, till she calms down.—There, come to me and have it out, my Nelly, and none shall trouble thee, trust me.”
Lack-a-daisy! I sobbed all the harder for a season, but in time I calmed down, as Mother says, and when so were, I prayed her of pardon for that I could be so foolish.
“Nay, my lass,” saith she, “we be made of body and soul, and either comes uppermost at times. ’Tis no good trying to live with one, which so it be.”