'Is he like you? Is he handsome, Deb?'
'Some folks say he is. My heart says there is no one like my bonnie Charlie! Yet he is somewhat of a bear. In Charlie, May, you must look for no courtly cavalier.'
'I like them not!' quoth May; 'of courtly phrases I am sick. But what like is he, this brother o' thine? Describe him.'
'Well, he is giant-tall—almost as tall as King, and may be taller.'
'I love tall men!'
'He cares not for his clothes, and dresses very rough; he has bonnie big eyes, dark and full of fire, that seem to scan you through; a brown face, a noble shapely head, and teeth as white as ivory. This be Master Fleming.'
'I like your portrait. But of Kingston I am afraid; his tongue is sharp as whip-cord. He is no great friend of yours, Deb, your cousin King?'
'And no great foe,' said Deborah, supremely careless. 'Nay—"blood is thicker than water;" I like him well enow; I have nought to say against King.'
Thus they talked, and much about tall men and short, dark men and fair—a deal of nonsense, as girls did then as now.
The next day there was a hunt, and great baying of hounds about Enderby. May would have Deborah go, and bring Kingston and Charlie home. So Lady Deb rode away, with old Jordan Dinnage behind her; and much ado had Jordan on such days to keep Deborah in sight, for hearing the horn and the hounds, she would grow wild, having come of a hard-riding race.