"Ah! But we'll waste no time in skirmishing, fair enemy. Tell me rather what didst mean by the loving-cup thou sendst me? May I take it sooth and truly as relenting on thy part?"
"I send you a loving-cup, sir!" exclaimed the girl, her eyes flashing, and her color rising.
"Yes. Call it by what name you will; I mean the cup Desire Minter brought me from thee, with a message that I should drink thy health."
"Loth were I to think, Captain Standish, that you would willfully insult a maid with none to defend her, and so I will charitably suppose that you have been forced to drink too many healths to guard well thine own. Good e'en, sir."
"Now by the God that made us both, wench, I'll have an end of this. Nay, not one step dost thou stir until you or I are laid in a lie."
"A lie, Captain Standish!"
"Mayhap my own lie. I say that Desire Minter brought me a silver cup of some sweet posset, such as you have made for our sick folk time and again, and bade me from you quaff it to your health."
"And that is God's truth, say you, sir?"
"Mistress Molines, my word has not often been doubted, and you force me to remind you that I come not of mechanical"—
"Nay, nay, stop there, an' it please you, sir! We'll unwind this coil before we snarl another. Fear not that my base mechanical blood shall ever sully your noble strain; but mean though I be, my habit is a tolerably truthful one, and I tell you once and for all that I sent you no cup, I made you no posset, I desired no health drunk by you."