"You are very inquisitive."
"Your betrothed, the Lord Home, is my dear friend."
Euphemia bit her lips with anger, while her eyes filled with tears.
"And this packet?" said Hailes again.
"Contained a book—only a book found in an English ship; and your lordship knows that a printed book is worth some crofts of corn."
"It may be so, but I would rather have the crofts," said Hailes, with a smile of scorn, as Euphemia opened the black-letter folio. "Thank God, I have no need to write; for I can bite my thumb, and affix my seal, like the good lord my father before me, to aught that is requisite in peace, and with this—his sword—I make my mark, where it suits me, in time of war; but what is this most precious tome?"
"One, the perusal of which might be of infinite service to your lordship."
"Indeed!—then what may it be—read, if it please you, fair madam."
"'The Book of Good Manners,'" said Euphemia, with a smile, as she read the title page, which we give literally from the original now before us; "'fynisshed and translated out of frensshe in to englisshe, the viiij day of Juyne, in the yere of our Lord, 1487, and the first yere of the regne of Kyng harry the vij—compiled by the venerable Frere Jacques le Graunt, an Augustin,' and the study thereof would, I am assured, benefit you much, so God keep you, my lord—and now, fare-you-well."
Sybilla laughed, as Euphemia gave one of her lofty bows, and they swept past Hailes, into whose proud heart the broad taunt sank deeply, for he had perception enough to feel his own want of manner and of education; so he bit his nether lip as he muttered, "I shall byde my time, and when I have either of you in my castle by the Tyne, her tongue shall be bridled, should a brank of iron be made for it!"