By this time Brilliana had seated herself, observing her vehement shes with amusement. She turned a face of assumed gravity upon the elder.
“So, so, Mistress Satchell, have you turned Roundhead all of a sudden?”
Mrs. Satchell shook her head at Brilliana and her fist at Tiffany.
“Tiffany is a minx, but I am an honest woman; and as I am an honest woman, there are honest qualities in this honest Puritan.”
Brilliana knew as much herself and fretted at the knowledge. It cut against the grain of her heart to admit that a rebel could have any redemption by gifts. But she still questioned Mistress Satchell smoothly, thinking the while of a man intrenched behind a table, one man against six.
“What are these marvels?” she asked.
Mistress Satchell was voluble of collected encomiums.
“Why, Thomas Coachman swears he is a master of horse-manage, and he has taught Luke Gardener a new method of grafting roses, and Simon Warrener swears he knows as much of hawking as any man in Oxford or Warwick.”
She paused, out of breath. Brilliana, leaning forward with an air of infinite gravity, commented: