“Please you, Mistress Edith,” said Mercy, when they had gone on some little way in silence, “does the young cavalier dwell always at Westminster?”
“Who is that, Mercy?” asked Edith.
“Sir Philip, madam; the gentleman that hath done so graciously, as people say, to the sick and to the poor.”
“Nay,” was the answer; “he dwells in Cumberland, Mercy.”
“Because, an’ please you,” continued Mercy, “Dame Saffron do tell sad tales of the great lady, the cavalier’s mother; and how she did speak of you in her raving, Mistress Edith, and called you Edith Dacre, and angel, and blessed one, and did not cease until she died.”
“Not I,” said Edith hastily; “it was not I the lady meant, but my mother, who was her kinswoman.”
“Then Sir Philip is of kin to you, Mistress Edith?” said the curious Mercy; “and truly that was what Dame Saffron said.”
“What did Dame Saffron say?” asked Edith.
“Nay, madam, nothing worth talking of—only that the young cavalier did not come always to have counsel with Master Field; but she knew not he was of kin to you, Mistress Edith; and forsooth she is but a gossip, and a great talker, as my mother says.”
Edith went on in silence: the pure blood flushing to her face. Before that great Death visibly present among them, who could think of the brighter things that cluster about the brow of youth; but now the weight was lifted off, and the young heart, strong in its humanity, began to send its first timid glances forward into a new future—a future rich with peradventures, and beautiful to look upon—fairer, perhaps more real, in its joy of anticipation, than if its dreams were all fulfilled.