Aunt Joyce arose and left the chamber. Then saith my Lady Stafford to me—
“There goes a strong soul. There be women such as she: but they are not to be picked, like blackberries, off every bramble. Edith, young folks are apt to think love a mere matter of youth and of matrimony. They cannot make a deeper blunder. The longer love lasts, the stronger it groweth.”
“Always, my Lady?” said I.
“Ay,” saith she. “That is, if it be love.”
We wrought a while without more talk: when suddenly saith my Lady Stafford:—
“Edith, didst thou see this Tregarvon, or how he called himself?”
“Ay, Madam,” said I. “He made up to me one morrow, when my sister Milisent and I were on Saint Hubert’s Isle in the mere yonder, and I was sat, a-drawing, of a stone.”
“Ay so?” quoth she, with some earnestness in her voice. “And what then?”
“I think he took not much of me, Madam,” said I.
My Lady Stafford smiled, yet methought somewhat pensively.