"Does it bring happiness?"
"In that it is like life,—brilliant as a field of poppies one day, sad as a grove of yew-trees the next."
"But how can one tell when one is—is in love?"
"Because when one is—is in love," mocked Elizabeth, "Love tells one."
"Wert thou sure?"
"Nay, I was of the blow hot, blow cold sort. When Humphrey shunned me, I fell a-dying for him; but when he sat casting sheep's eyes at me, I yawned in his face. I wanted to own him; yet I had no yearning to bear bonds myself. But sometimes storms clear the air better than sunshine; and when we met at the gate of death, as it seemed, in the massacre at Flower da Hundred yonder, I knew that in life or death he was mine and I his."
"Master Huntoon," cried Peggy, turning to Romney with a merry eye but a trembling lip, "thinkst, then, thou couldst get up a massacre? 'Tis evident nothing less will show a woman what manner of thing love is! Yet that would not serve either, for in such like times 'tis only the great things of life that we heed. If I could keep thee for such, thou wouldst suit me to the Queen's taste, but oh dear me! life is made up of such little things! When thou dost trip over the root of a tree, I hate thee for thy clumsiness; when thou dost turn a compliment, I long to take it from thy lips and say it to myself,—I know so well what manner of speech a girl would like."
"And I what answer a man would go on his knees for."
"Ah, there thou art again. When thou didst kneel, I saw thee first dust the floor with thy kerchief."