“Nay, ’tis all done and settled by now,” saith she. “I should but get took up for brawling. But I warrant you, that flying white thing sticketh sore in my throat, and ever did. An’ I had my way, no parson should minister but in his common coat.”
“But that were unseemly and undecent, Bess,” quoth Aunt Joyce.
“Nay, Mistress Joyce, but methinks ’tis a deal decenter,” answers she. “Wherefore, if a man can speak to me of earthly things in a black gown, must he needs don a white when he cometh to speak to me of heavenly things? There is no wit in such stuff.”
“See you, Mynheer,” saith Father, again laughing, “even here in Selwick Hall, where I trust we be little given to quarrel, yet the clocks keep not all one time.”
“Eh! No!” saith Mynheer, shrugging of his shoulders and smiling. “The gentlewomen, they be very determined in their own opinions.”
“Well, I own, I like to see things decent,” saith Aunt Joyce. “I desire not to have back the Popish albs and such like superstitious gauds—not I: but I do like to see a parson in a clean white surplice, and I would be right sorry were it laid aside.”
Cousin Bess said nought, but wagged her head, and tare her flannel in twain.
“Now, I dare be bound, Bess, thou countest me gone half-way back to Rome,” saith Aunt Joyce.
“That were nigh the Via Mala,” quoth Father.
“Eh, Mistress Joyce, I’ll judge no man, nor no woman,” makes answer Cousin Bess. “The Lord looketh on the heart; and ’tis well for us He doth, for if we were judged by what other folk think of us, I reckon we should none of us come so well off. But them white flying kites be rags of Popery, that will I say,—yea, and stand to.”