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'Farewell to you! my hopes, my wonted waking dreams, Farewell, sometimes enjoyed joy, eclipsed are thy beams. Farewell self-pleasing thoughts! which quietness brings forth, And farewell friendship's sacred league! uniting minds of worth.' Sir F. Greville, 1591. |
Lucy Forrester was mending the lace of one of Lady Pembroke's ruffs which had been torn at the edge on the previous day, when a page brought in Humphrey's letter, saying, 'For Mistress Forrester.'
'Hand it hither,' Mistress Crawley said. 'It will keep till that lace is mended, and I'd have you to know, Mistress Lucy, my lady is very careful that there should be no billets passing between the young gentlewomen of her household and idle gallants about the Court. A pack of rubbish is in that letter, I'll warrant; some rhymes about your bright eyes and cherry cheeks, or some such stuff.'
'If you please, Madam, I desire to have my letter, and, if you will not give it to me, I will go to my lady and tell her you refuse to let me have it.'
'You little sauce-box! Do you think my lady has nought to do but attend to the whimsies of chits like you? Go on with your work. Do you hear?'
Lucy was burning with indignation, and, moreover, her curiosity was awakened to know who had written to her, and what were the contents of the letter.
The spirit which had rebelled against her stepmother now asserted itself, and she pushed back the stool on which she was sitting with such violence that it fell with a crash on the floor, and, as it fell, knocked against the spindle at which another of the maidens was sitting, and the thread snapped in two.
In the confusion which ensued Lucy escaped, and went into the gallery which ran round the house, and meeting Mr Sidney, she stopped short.
'Whither away, Mistress Lucy? My sister wishes to see you.'
'And I wish to see my lady,' Lucy said, her breast heaving with suppressed excitement. 'I was running to seek her.'