"Why, I mean the packet I sent her by Mistress Bullen," answered Dick, looking surprised in his turn. "I saw my Lady Latimer and my Lady Denny at work with these beads and silks, embroidering of stools and covers; and knowing how famous your house is for fine work, I thought the like materials would make an acceptable offering, please the Lady Abbess, and perhaps yourself. So I asked my Lady cousin to buy the things for me, and sent them by the hands of Mistress Bullen, as I said; and much amazed I was to have them returned on my hands by Master Griffith."
I saw it all in a minute; and despite my vexation I could not help laughing to think how dear Mother Superior had cheated herself.
"Mistress Bullen was a Corby messenger," I said, as soon as I could compose my face. "She made a great mystery of the matter, giving me the packet in secret, telling me that you had bidden her give it me privately. Only that dear Mother is so good and right-minded, I should have been in a serious scrape."
Dick looked vexed enough.
"Just what I might have expected!" said he. "Mistress Anne is a born mischief-maker! She said you told her you had nothing to say to any Court popinjay; even if you married, you looked for a higher match than the poor kinsman of a lord, but you would rather be Abbess of a good house than to be any man's house-dame."
"I never said such a word!" I told him. "It would ill become me to be talking of such matters!"
"It did not sound like you, and I did not believe her when she spoke," said Richard. "I could not think you so changed in a short time. But I cannot help laughing, now I know the right of the matter, to think how the good Mother cheated herself. And yet, since she did believe the packet to be yours, 'twas like a high-minded lady not to open it."
"She is a high-minded lady!" I said. "I wish she had opened the parcel, because then I should have been quite cleared in her eyes, and yet I respect her the more for not doing so. When I can write to her I will tell her how it was."
"Aye, and send the packet back at the same time, if you will," said Richard. "I have brought you some things of the same sort."
"Richard!" said I, presently, after we had walked in silence a little way. "I heard my mother and my Lady talking about the spread of the new doctrine, and the new English Testaments. Have you seen any of these books?"