when I have found out; but
mark my words, mistress, there's something going on in this house ...
Hush! not a word to that young jackanapes," he added as a distant
clatter of pewter mugs announced the approach of Master Courage. "Watch
with me, mistress, thou'lt perceive something. And when I have found
out, 'twill be the beginning of our fortunes."

Once more he placed a warning finger on his lips; once more he gave
Mistress Charity a knowing wink, and her wrist an admonitory pressure,
then he resumed his staid and severe manner, his saintly mien and
somewhat nasal tones, as from the gay outside world beyond the
window-embrasure the sound of many voices, the ripple of young laughter,
the clink of heeled boots on the stone-flagged path, proclaimed the
arrival of the quality.

CHAPTER II

ON A JULY AFTERNOON

In the meanwhile in a remote corner of the park the quality was
assembled round the skittle-alley.

Imagine Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse standing there, as stiff a Roundhead
as ever upheld my Lord Protector and his Puritanic government in this
remote corner of the county of Kent: dour in manner, harsh-featured and
hollow-eyed, dressed in dark doublet and breeches wholly void of tags,
ribands or buttons. His closely shorn head is flat at the back, square
in front, his clean-shaven lips though somewhat thick are always held
tightly pressed together. Not far from him sits on a rough wooden seat,
Mistress Amelia Editha de Chavasse, widow of Sir Marmaduke's elder
brother, a good-looking woman still, save for the look of discontent,
almost of suppressed rebellion, apparent in the perpetual dark frown
between the straight brows, in the downward curve of the well-chiseled
mouth, and in the lowering look which seems to dwell for ever in the
handsome dark eyes.

Dame Harrison, too, was there: the large and portly dowager, florid of
face, dictatorial in manner, dressed in the supremely unbecoming style
prevalent at the moment, when everything that was beautiful in art as
well as in nature was condemned as sinful and ungodly; she wore the dark
kirtle and plain, ungainly bodice with its hard white kerchief folded
over her ample bosom; her hair was parted down the middle and brushed
smoothly and flatly to her ears, where but a few curls were allowed to
escape with well-regulated primness from beneath the horn-comb, and the
whole appearance of her looked almost grotesque, surmounted as it was by
the modish high-peaked