"Faith, but Miss Blake will greatly rejoice to hear this! I will tell her forthwith, and I warrant me I shall be high in favour all the day for the same story. Good Dicon, thou wilt be a rare favourite in Taunton Town an thou dost uphold here the rights of our well-loved Duke!"
"Hist, lassie!" answered her father, yet smiling nevertheless. "It behoves us to talk with care even in Taunton Town. Let not such words be heard by the Rev. Mr. Axe, nor still less by Mr. Blewer. The Duke hath his foes as well as his friends within the town. We must not hurt a good cause by over-zeal ere the right moment comes."
Lizzie laughed, and asked with a pretty, saucy air who would trouble to take note of the words of such an obscure maiden as herself; and then she looked at the clock and sprang up, and said she must even go, or she should be late, and Miss Blake would chide. And I then learned that Miss Blake was the mistress of the school where this maiden went daily for instruction, and moreover that it stood adjoining my uncle's inn, and must indeed be the house I had been wondering about in looking from my windows on awakening this very morning.
So on understanding this much, I sprang up and asked leave to escort pretty Lizzie to her school; and soon we were walking along the garlanded streets, and she was telling me how greatly Miss Blake and Mrs. Musgrave loved the Duke, and how dear his cause was to the hearts of the people of Taunton. I also learned that Miss Blake and Mrs. Musgrave were two ladies of virtue and learning, and that they had each kept a school for girls in the beginning, but had now joined these two seminaries into one. Miss Blake took the younger maidens, and Mrs. Musgrave the elder ones; and my companion chattered so fast about her companions, telling me their names, ages, and accomplishments with such fluency, that I was quite bewildered; and the only item of information which I retained in my head was that there was one, Mary Mead, a youthful heiress, some years older than any of her companions, who had been educated by Mrs. Musgrave, and still remained in her charge, although since she was now of marriageable age it was likely that her condition in life would speedily be changed.
We parted the best of friends at the door of the seminary, where some other maidens were assembling, who looked curiously upon me as I took off my cap and made my best bow to them all. The door of the school was a few paces round the corner, and the house was of fine proportions. I well understood as I looked at it—Lizzie and her companions having now disappeared within—how it was that my room over our stable buildings approached so nigh to it. I felt a good deal of interest in the close vicinity of these bright-faced town maidens, who seemed so different from the country girls I had lived amongst hitherto. Not that I would disparage mine own sisters and their friends; but there were a brightness and ease of manner and readiness of wit amongst these damsels which dazzled and captivated me, and which I had never seen at home.
When I got back to the inn, I found breakfast well-nigh done; but I received no chiding for my absence, especially when I said whither I had been and with whom. Master Simpson was plainly a notable man of good repute in Taunton, and a friend of mine uncle's to boot. My uncle, too, was pleased at the gift of the book which I had received, arguing that Master Simpson must have thought well of my scholarship. I read him two or three of the fables; whereat he laughed not a little, and bid me hold myself in readiness to amuse his guests therewith on another occasion.
I was not to go to school till the following week, and to-day I had leave to wander whither I would, to see what I could and what I most desired, and enjoy the merry-making of the town.
My cousin Meg, a fine buxom lass of nigh upon twenty summers, was all agog to go with me; and I was proud enough to have such a companion. So after I had helped her with her dishes and so forth, being skilled in many feminine tasks through helping my mother at home when she and the girls were pressed, she donned her holiday gown and gayest hood—and well she became them both, as I failed not to tell her—and I put on my best clothes, which seemed to me fine enough even if somewhat lacking in the grace and fashion I saw in some of the towns-folk of the better sort; and forth we sallied to see the sights of the town, and to enjoy any revelry that might be going.
The best of the merry-making would be towards evening, when the shops would close, and the apprentices and shopmen be free to join; but even now there was plenty to see and to admire. The fine proportions of the streets and public buildings filled me with a great wonder; and when we dived down a passage past Huish's Almshouse, and came out in front of St. Mary's Church, I stood still and silent in speechless admiration, marvelling at its wondrous beauty and lofty dignity, and asking of myself whether St. Paul's itself in fair London town could be as goodly a sight.