[#] Surpasses belief.
"Use your eyes," said Tamzine. "Jane, sweet chuck, give up searching for a needle of a bottle of hay. The cat hath it, I'll be bound, or some animal belike."
In which Miss Tamzine was not so far wrong, seeing that the missing article lay in her own pocket.
"Cats eat no lockets, trow," said Marion.
"Nay, but I cannot," answered Jane in a distressed voice. "I had never yet heavier loss in all my life."
"Good sooth, your life must have been a merry one," said Tamzine.
"I have lost father and mother," added Marion. "Somewhat passing a locket, belike."
"I have lost worser than that," said the cynical Tamzine, "for I had eleven hundred pound put out to usury, and he that had it paid me ne'er a plack."
"Dear heart! how came that?" said Marion.
"Father Nokes said it came of the temptation of Satan, and the evilness of men's hearts," was the demure reply of Tamzine.