"Is the Lady Frances at home?" was the next question.
"No; she returns next week."
"Folk say she hath the king's temper," observed Philippa. "They say that she and her step-mother do not agree, and that when the Duchess cuffed her for her impertinence, she struck back and gave her mother a black eye. Was that so, think you?"
"I don't believe it. I know nothing about my Lady Frances's relations with her mother, and if I did, I would not tell it out of the family."
"Why, what harm would it do?" asked Philippa.
"It would be treason to those whose bread she eats, and under whose protection she lives," said Mistress Davis, with emphasis. "And Loveday is right to refuse. There can be no greater or baser act of treachery, than for a servant in any station to tattle of the private concerns of her employers."
Philippa pouted. "She told the children how the little lord rode his pony in the tilt-yard."
"That was but child's play," said I, "very different from what you have asked. How would you like to have some one tell of all that happened in your family, supposing you had one?"
"Any how, a great many people do it, and think no harm."
"They do harm, whether they think it or not," answered Mistress Davis. "Many a scandal and shame grows out of such tittle-tattle."