"None which can pay the worth of their heads," Mr. Congleton replied.
"And who, then, doth price them?" asked Kate, in a languishing voice.
"Nay, sister," quoth Polly, "I warrant thee they do price themselves; for he that will not pay well for his head must needs opine he hath a worthless one."
Upon which Mr. Lacy said to Kate, "One hundred angels would not pay for thine, sweet Kate."
"Then she must needs be an archangel, sir," quoth Polly, "if she be of greater worth than one hundred angels."
"Ah, me!" cried Kate, very earnestly, "I would I had but half one hundred gold-pieces to buy me a gown with!"
"Hast thou not gowns enough, wench?" asked her father. "Methought thou wert indifferently well provided in that respect."
"Ah, but I would have, sir, such a velvet suit as I did see some weeks back at the Italian house in Cheapside, where the ladies of the court do buy their vestures. It had a border the daintiest I ever beheld, all powdered with gold and pearls. Ruffiano said it was the rarest suit he had ever made; and he is the Queen of France's tailor, which Sir Nicholas Throgmorton did secretly entice away, by the queen's desire, from that court to her own."
"And what fair nymph owns this rare suit, sweetest Kate?" Mr. Lacy asked. "I'll warrant none so fair that it should become her, or rather that she should become it, more than her who doth covet it."
"I know not if she be fair or foul," quoth Kate, "but she is the Lady Mary Howard, one of the maids of honor of her majesty, and so may wear what pleaseth her."