t up, and trust in the Lord,"
Mistress Tabitha swept him out of the door in front of her, and with the
big basket on her arm, lightened of its savoury contents, marched him
off to the Chequers for the horse.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

PANDORA.

In the projecting oriel window of a very pleasant sitting-room, whose
inside seat was furnished with blue velvet cushions, sat a girl of
seventeen years, dressed in velvet of the colour then known as
lion-tawny, which was probably a light yellowish-brown. It was trimmed,
or as she would have said, turned up, with satin of the same colour, was
cut square, but high, at the throat, and finished by gold embroidery
there and on the cuffs. A hood of dark blue satin covered her head, and
came down over the shoulders, set round the front with small pearls in a
golden frame shaped somewhat like a horseshoe. She was leaning her head
upon one hand, and looking out of the window with dreamy eyes that
evidently saw but little of the landscape, and thinking so intently that
she never perceived the approach of another girl, a year or two her
senior, and similarly attired, but with a very different expression in
her lively, mischievous eyes. The hands of the latter came down on the
shoulders of the meditative maiden so suddenly that she started and
almost screamed. Then, looking up, a faint smile parted her lips, and
the intent look left her eyes.

"Oh! is it you, Gertrude?"

"Dreaming, as usual, Pan? Confess now, that you wist not I was in the
chamber."

"I scarce did, True." The eyes were growing grave and thoughtful again.

"Sweet my lady!--what conneth she, our Maiden Meditation? Doth she
essay to find the philosopher's stone?--or be her thoughts of the true
knight that is to bend low at her feet, and whisper unto her some day
that he loveth none save her? I would give a broad shilling for the
first letter of his name."

"You must give it, then, to some other than me. Nay, True; my fantasies
be not of thy lively romancing sort. I was but thinking on a little
maid that I saw yester-even, in our walk with Aunt Grena."

"What, that dainty little conceit that came up to the house with her
basket of needlework that her mother had wrought for Aunt Grena? She
was a pretty child, I allow."

"Oh no, not Patience Bradbridge. My little maid was elder than she, and
lay on a day-bed within a compassed window. I marvelled who she were."

"Why, you surely mean that poor little whitef