The next morning she was unusually demure, and yet merry withal. In her own chamber, as she chose out a petticoat of pale blue taffeta, and laid on the bed her girdle of buff-colored leather, and proceeded to array herself in these and other braveries, it was to the usual accompaniment of thoughtless and quite inconsequent ballad-singing. At one moment it was "Green-sleeves was all my joy," and again "Fair, fair, and twice so fair," or perhaps—
"An ambling nag, and a-down, a-down,
We have borne her away to Dargison."
But when she came to take forth from the cupboard of boxes the portion of the play she had locked up there the night before, and when she carefully placed that in a satchel of dark blue velvet that she had attached to the girdle, she was silent; and when she went down-stairs and encountered her mother, there was a kind of anxious innocence on her face. The good parson (she explained) had remained so late on the previous afternoon, and there were so many things about the house she had to attend to, that she had been unable to get out into the fields, as her father had bade her, to bring him home some wild flowers. Besides, as every one knew, large dogs got weak in the hind-legs if they were kept chained up too continuously; and it was absolutely necessary she should take Don Roderigo out for a run with her through the meadows, if her father would permit.
"There be plenty of flowers in the garden, surely," her mother said, who was busy with some leather hangings, and wanted help.
"But he would liefer have some of the little wildlings, good mother," said Judith. "That I know right well; for he is pleased to see them lying on the table before him; and sometimes, too, he puts the names of them in his writing."
"How know you that?" was the immediate and sharp question.
"As I have heard, good mother," Judith said, with calm equanimity.
And then she went to the small mirror to see that her gray velvet cap and starched ruff were all right.
"What can your father want with wild flowers if he is to remain the whole day at Warwick!" her mother said.
"Is my father gone to Warwick?" she asked, quickly.