ntlewoman; secondly, that, if she whipped
Mr. Neville, however inefficaciously, he would not lend her his piebald
horse. So she took stronger measures; she just sank down again, and
faltered,--

"I do not understand these bitter words. I have no lover at all; I never
will have one again. But it is hard to think I cannot make a friend nor
keep a friend,"--and so lifted up her hands, and began to cry piteously.

Then the stout George was taken aback, and made to think himself a
ruffian.

"Nay, do not weep so, Mistress Kate," said he, hurriedly. "Come, take
courage. I am not jealous of Mr. Gaunt,--a man that hath been two years
dangling after you, and could not win you. I look but to my own
self-respect in the matter. I know your sex better than you know
yourselves. Were I to carry that letter, you would thank me now, but
by-and-by despise me. Now, as I mean you to be my wife, I will not risk
your contempt. Why not take my horse, put whom you like on him, and so
convey the letter to Mr. Gaunt?"

Now this was all the fair mourner wanted; so she said,--

"No, no, she would not be beholden to him for anything; he had spoken
harshly to her, and misjudged her cruelly, cruelly,--oh! oh! oh!"

Then he implored her to grant him this small favor; then she cleared up,
and said, Well, sooner than bear malice, she would. He thanked her for
granting him that favor. She went off with the letter, saying,--

"I will be back anon."

But once she got clear, she opened the door again, and peeped in at him
gayly, and said she,--

"Why not ask me who _wrote_ the letter, before you compared me to that
French coquette?"--and, with this, made him an arch curtsy, and tripped
away.

Mr. George Neville opened his eyes with astonishment. This arch
question, and Kate's manner of putting it, convinced him the obnoxious
missive was not a love-letter at all. He was sorry now, and vexed with
himself, for having called her a coquette, and made her cry. After all,
what was the mighty favor she had asked of him? To carry a sealed letter
from somebody or other to a person who, to be sure, had been her lover,
but was so no longer,--a simple act of charity and civility; and he had
refused it in injurious terms.

He was glad he had lent his horse, and almost sorry he had not taken the
letter himself.

To these chivalrous self-reproaches succeeded an uneasy feeling that
perhaps the lady might retaliate somehow. It struck him, on reflection,
that t