"You are no courtier, Mistress—Corbet—you should have praised my playing to the skies, and sworn that you were listening to the music of the spheres. That is what I am used to."
"Perhaps that is the trouble with your playing," I could not forbear saying; whereat she laughed again.
"Worse and worse. Why you are downright Dunstable with a witness; but I like you all the better," she added. "I think you and I shall be good friends. Say, Mistress Corbet, will you give me lessons on the organ?"
"Surely, Lady Frances, if your mother is willing," said I. "It must be as she says, you know."
"Of course. Do you know, Mistress Corbet, a lady tried to make me think I owed no obedience to my step-dame, because the king is mine uncle—what do you think?"
"I think you are the most imprudent young lady that ever talked to a stranger," was my thought, but I said—
"I am not the proper person to advise you, my Lady Frances, but if you will know what mine opinion is, I think that the precept—'Children obey your parents in the Lord,' comes from one greater than all the kings and princes of the earth. I think also that any young maid, gentle or simple, might be thankful to have such a step-dame as my mistress."
"And so do I," she answered warmly. "And I won't be set against her by any of them."
At this moment the door was opened by a severe-looking lady whom I had never seen before. Starch was not used in those days, or I might think she had been fed on nothing else since she was born, so stiffly did she carry herself.
"My Lady Frances, what are you doing here?" said she, in that kind of tone which excites rebellion in the heart of the best child that ever lived. "Methinks you forget what is due to your rank in talking thus familiarly with this—you are her Grace's chamber-woman if I mistake not!" she added, turning to me in a way that made her words a downright insult.