"Eh, good lack!" returned the daughter. "I marvel where he dwelleth, and if it be far away."
"Shall my Lord covenant with him, I marvel?" said Frideswide, looking up from her embroidery-frame.
Agnes was not in the room.
"Not ere he ask our counsel, methinks," replied Lady Idonia. "At the least I hope not."
"I will read him a lecture an' he do!" said Lady Margery, laughing.
"Hush!" was her mother's quick check. "Hold your peace afore the maid."
For Agnes was just entering, and she came and sat down to her sewing. Another half-hour passed almost in silence. At its close, Lord Marnell came to the door and called out John Combe, who was seated with a book in the recess of the window. With a few low-toned words he sent him off somewhere, and came forward into the hall himself.
"Well, my Lady," said he, rubbing his hands with the air of a man very well satisfied with his morning's work, "and what think you is Master Rotherham come about?"
"You were best tell us, my Lord," answered his wife, prudently declining to commit herself.
"Of a truth I am well pleased," returned he. "I have heard much good of the young gentleman: and he hath a fair estate, and spendeth well-nigh two hundred pound by the year; and true to the Red is he, and a good fellow belike, as I do believe. He would make his wife jointure of sixty pound by the year, and an house—not so ill, eh?"