Mistress Satchell turned a damp, shining face and a questioning eye upon Tiffany.
“Is not he a dashing lad for a Puritan?” she gasped, patting her ample chest with both hands as if to fondle her newly recovered breath. Tiffany, who was bearing her mistress’s lute, shrugged and pouted.
“I see little to like in him,” she snapped. This was not at all true, but she was not going to admit as much to Mistress Satchell, or, for that matter, to herself. Mistress Satchell snorted fiercely, like an offended war-horse.
“Because he has not clipped you round the waist, pinched you in the cheek, kissed you on the lips—such liberties as our rufflers use. But he is a man for my money.”
She spoke with vehemence. Pretty Tiffany made a dainty grimace as she answered:
“I think I am pleasing enough to behold, yet he gave me no more than a glance when he gave me good-day.”
Mistress Satchell’s ample bulk swayed with indignation.
“He is a lad of taste, I tell you. Why should he waste his gaze on such small goods when there was nobler ware anigh? He smiled all over his face when he greeted me.”
Tiffany was sorely tempted to smile all over her face as she listened, but Mistress Satchell’s temper was short and her arm long, so she kept her countenance as she answered, shortly: