"I'd make sure," was Mariot's quiet conclusion. "There be some nuts be all o'er prickles o' the outside, which be good enough when thou hast stripped off the bur."
"Mistress Wenteline," said Lawrence, the next morning, "will you do me so much favour as tell me if Mistress Beatrice hath yet purpose to be a nun?"
"I believe," answered Guenllian, "she hath purpose to be veiled with the White Ladies of Limbroke, if it may be, this next month." But as Lawrence passed on, she said to herself, "Unless you can persuade her out of it!"
A few hours later, when the dusk had come, as Lawrence crossed the ante-chamber, into which the moon was shining brightly, he saw a dark figure standing in the recess of the window, and went up to it. His heart, rather than his eyes, told him who it was.
"Is it you, Mistress Beatrice?"
"It is I, Sir Lawrence."
The old playmates had become excessively ceremonious to each other. The brotherly sort of intercourse, resumed on their meeting at Trim, had been quite dropped, and they were as distantly civil as if they had made acquaintance only a few days before.
"You can scarce see much hence, methinketh."
"It is fair enough," said Beatrice, absently; adding after a moment, "fair enough for one who shall soon behold nought beyond convent walls."
"Are you well avised thereabout, Mistress Beatrice?"