“And what brings Master Dick here?” asks she, fingering her whip.
“This packet, fair cousin,” says I, and handed her Sir Nicholas’s letter.
“From my uncle,” she says. “You give me leave to read it, cousin? I can ill bide delay of any sort.”
“’Tis reward enough,” says I teasingly, “to sit by and gaze on so much beauty.”
But at that she frowned heavily, and when she cut the silk and was fairly amongst the crabbed lines within, she frowned still more, and once I saw her white teeth close on the pretty nether lip and crush the blood out of it, whereby I guessed that Sir Nicholas had given her news that was none too sweet. And at last she folds up the sheet with a rustle and whips it into her breast, and looks at me with a glance that had made the great Turk himself shake in his shoes.
“So you prefer books to swords, Master Richard?” says she.
“Did I say so?” says I.
And for very love of sport I laughed mockingly. She drew herself up to her full height—egad! I had never seen aught so taking!—and her pretty mouth curled itself, while the rich colour flushed over her dark cheek.
“Good-day to you, Master Poltroon!” says she.
“Good-day to you, Mistress Spitfire!” says I.