"Are there no masks there?" asked the stout knight. "If not, there are veils, fair Constance; and, take my word for it, sooner or later, there come regrets and repinings, longings to see the world that has been renounced, and pluck some of the fruit of the pleasant tree of knowledge, that bitter sweet, the pleasant berries of which tempt the eye from afar, although there is now no serpent hid amongst the foliage."
"But look at my good aunt, the abbess," answered the young lady. "She has none of these regrets and repinings that you mention. She is always merry, cheerful, contented."
"Ay, but hers is a case by itself," answered Arden. "She can get out when she likes; and a good creature she is. Her life is as easy as a widow's. No, no. Take my advice, and think not of a convent."
"Why, what would you have me do in the wide world?" asked Constance, half gaily, half sadly.
"Why, marry to be sure," replied the good knight, "and have a score of cherub babes, to cheer you with their pleasant faces. Let me tell you, it is like having heaven round your knees, and you are not a whit the less likely in the end to reach the heaven overhead."
"But suppose no one would have me," answered Constance, with a smile.
"Try all the young fellows first, and then try me," answered Sir William, bluffly, but with a light laugh at the same time, which softened the point of his words; and Constance answered--
"No, no. A woman can try no one. I must be wooed and won."
"On my life, if I thought you could," murmured Arden to himself, "I think I would try;" but the words did not reach Constance's ear; and, after a short pause of thought, the old knight said abruptly, "I don't like your fair cousin's looks."
"And yet they are fair looks too," answered Constance.