at doth Mrs Anne but write me word in
answer that there is in all this world no maid to compare for discretion
with Annis Holland, which hath learned the French from her, and the
Latin from Mr Hungerford, of the King's house, and can chatter like a
pie in both the one and the other. Wherefore I, being aweary of
searching for discreet maids, did lay hands with all quickness and
pleasure on this maid, and she is now in mine house a-learning of the
Spanish from Father Alonso, and Don Jeronymo, and me. And so, being
weary, I commend you and Mr Avery to God. From Grimsthorpe, this
Wednesday, at six of the clock in the morning; and like a sluggard [Note
9], in my bed.

"Your assured loving friend,--

"K. Suffolk."

The reader will need more explanation of this lively epistle than did
Isoult. Anne Basset, the third of Lady Lisle's four daughters, had been
successively Maid of Honour to the four latter Queens of Henry the
Eighth; during much of which period (with an interval for her Calais
experience) Isoult Barry had been her bower-woman. When Isoult quitted
Anne's service for that of the Duchess of Suffolk, she begged that her
old friend Annis Holland might be promoted to the vacant place,--a
request readily granted by Anne. Since Isoult Barry became Isoult
Avery, she had seen little of either Anne or Annis; and the transference
of the latter to the Duchess's service was no little wonder to her.

Meanwhile public news poured in on all sides. Mr Tremayne, who had
occasion to journey to Exeter, came back armed at all points with fresh
tidings of what was doing in the world; and as such live newspapers
supplied all that was to be had, every body in Bodmin immediately asked
him to dinner. Mr Tremayne declined the majority of the invitations;
but he accepted that from Bradmond, which included his family also. So
he, in a brown velvet suit, and Custance in the gravest drab, and Arbel
with some bright blue ribbons neutralising her sober "sad-coloured"
dress, and Robin, whose cap bore a white feather stuck in it in a style
not suggestive of Quakerism, walked up to Bradmond one Thursday
afternoon, to four-hours.

It is scarcely needful to explain that four-hours was a meal taken at
four p.m., and in style and custom corresponding to the "afternoon tea"
now in vogue. It may be more desirable to indicate of what it
consisted, seeing that tea and coffee were yet mysteries of the future.
There were cakes of all varieties;