"Mother Bonham.
"Avice Hilton!" came at this moment in clear tones from the closet.
"I cry you mercy, Mother!" was the natural reply.
"Days for talk, nights for sleep," said the old lady sententiously.
With simply a "Good night, Frideswide," Avice turned on her pillow, and no more was said.
This revelation by no means conduced to Frideswide's happiness. She was uneasy about Agnes, whom she knew to be a girl who would say little, but suffer keenly. Yet what could she do?—beyond taking Avice's counsel, and praying for her.
The idea of writing, either to her father or sister, did not occur to Frideswide. Letters were serious affairs in those days, more especially to women: and though Frideswide had learned to write, which was not too common an accomplishment in ladies, yet it was to her a very laborious and tedious business, requiring some decided reason to induce so great an effort. While there were at that time a sufficient number of women who could write, yet not to have acquired the art was considered no disgrace to a woman of any rank. In that interesting contemporaneous poem, "The Song of the Lady Bessy," we find the daughter of Edward IV. assuring Lord Stanley that there is no need to send for a scribe to write his important private letters, for she could write as well as any scrivener.
"You shall not need none such to call,
Good Father Stanley—hearken to me,
What my father, King Edward, that King royal,
Did for my sister, my Lady Welles,[#] and me:
He sent for a scrivener to lusty London,
He was the best in that citie;
He taught us both to write and read full soon—
If it please you, full soon you shall see—
Lauded be God, I had such speed
That I can write as well as he,
Both English and also French,
And also Spanish, if you had need."[#]
[#] The Princess Cicely.
[#] Humphrey Brereton, Lord Stanley's squire, and the writer of the poem, was present at the conference, and we may therefore take him to record the exact statements made by the Princess Elizabeth.