“It pleases you to-day,” continued Roland, “to wear the snood and kirtle, and perhaps you may be seen to-morrow in hat and feather, hose and doublet.”
“In the clout! in the clout! you have hit the very white,” said the damsel, suppressing a great inclination to laugh.
“You can switch men's eyes out of their heads, as well as the heart out of their bosoms.”
These last words were uttered in a low and tender tone, which, to Roland's great mortification, and somewhat to his displeasure, was so far from allaying, that it greatly increased, his partner's disposition to laughter. She could scarce compose herself while she replied, “If you had thought my hand so formidable,” extricating it from his hold, “you would not have grasped it so hard; but I perceive you know me so fully, that there is no occasion to show you my face.”
“Fair Catherine,” said the page, “he were unworthy ever to have seen you, far less to have dwelt so long in the same service, and under the same roof with you, who could mistake your air, your gesture, your step in walking or in dancing, the turn of your neck, the symmetry of your form—none could be so dull as not to recognize you by so many proofs; but for me, I could swear even to that tress of hair that escapes from under your muffler.”
“And to the face, of course, which that muffler covers,” said the maiden, removing her veil, and in an instant endeavouring to replace it. She showed the features of Catherine; but an unusual degree of petulant impatience inflamed them, when, from some awkwardness in her management of the muffler, she was unable again to adjust it with that dexterity which was a principal accomplishment of the coquettes of the time.
“The fiend rive the rag to tatters!” said the damsel, as the veil fluttered about her shoulders, with an accent so earnest and decided, that it made the page start. He looked again at the damsel's face, but the information which his eyes received, was to the same purport as before. He assisted her to adjust her muffler, and both were for an instant silent. The damsel spoke first, for Roland Graeme was overwhelmed with surprise at the contrarieties which Catherine Seyton seemed to include in her person and character.
“You are surprised,” said the damsel to him, “at what you see and hear—But the times which make females men, are least of all fitted for men to become women; yet you yourself are in danger of such a change.”
“I in danger of becoming effeminate!” said the page.
“Yes, you, for all the boldness of your reply,” said the damsel. “When you should hold fast your religion, because it is assailed on all sides by rebels, traitors, and heretics, you let it glide out of your breast like water grasped in the hand. If you are driven from the faith of your fathers from fear of a traitor, is not that womanish?—If you are cajoled by the cunning arguments of a trumpeter of heresy, or the praises of a puritanic old woman, is not that womanish?—If you are bribed by the hope of spoil and preferment, is not that womanish?—And when you wonder at my venting a threat or an execration, should you not wonder at yourself, who, pretending to a gentle name and aspiring to knighthood, can be at the same time cowardly, silly, and self-interested!”