om the window.

"What so, _Aunt_?" quoth he.

"Stand up a minute, and let me look at thee," saith she.

_Walter_ did so, but with a look as though he marvelled what Aunt
_Joyce_ would be at.

"I would judge from thy face," quoth she, "if thou art the right lad
come, or they have changed thee in _London_ town. Our _Walter_ used to
have his father's eyes and his mother's mouth. Well, I suppose thou
art: but I should scantly have guessed it from thy talk."

"_Walter_," softly saith _Mother_, "thy father should never have so
dealt when he were of thy years."

"Lack-a-daisy! I would have thought the world was turning round," quoth
Aunt _Joyce_, "had I ever heard such a speech of _Aubrey_ at any years
whatsoever."

_Father_ listed this with some diversion, as methought from the set of
his lips.

"Well, I am not as good as _Father_," saith _Wat_.

"Amen!" quoth Aunt _Joyce_.

"But, _Aunt_, you are hard on a man. See you not, all the fellows think
you a coward if you dare not spend freely and act boldly? Ay, and a
miser belike."

"Is it worser to be thought a coward than to be one?" saith _Father_.

"Who be `all the fellows'?" saith Aunt _Joyce_. "My Lord of _Burleigh_
and my Lord _Hunsdon_ and Sir _Francis Walsingham_, I'll warrant you."

"Now, _Aunt_!" saith _Walter_. "Not grave old men like they! My Lord
of _Oxenford_, that is best-dressed man of all the Court, and spendeth
an hundred pound by the year in gloves and perfumes only--"

"Eh, _Wat_!" cries _Helen_: and _Mother_,--"_Walter_, my dear boy!"

"'Tis truth, I do ensure you," saith he: "and Sir _Walter Raleigh_, one
of the first wits in all _Europe_: and young _Blount_, that is high in
the Queen's Majesty's favour: and my young Lord of _Essex_, unto whom
she showeth good countenance. 'Tis not possible to lower one's self in
the eyes of such men as these--and assuredly I should were I less
free-handed."

"My word, _Wat_, but thou hast fallen amongst an ill pack of hounds!"
saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"Then it is possible, or at least more possible, to lower thyself in our
eyes, _Wat_?" saith _Father_.

"_Father_, you make me to feel 'shamed of myself!" crieth _Wat_. "Yet,
think you, so should they when I were among them, if I should hold back
from these very deeds."

"Then is there no difference, my son," asks _Father_, still as gentle as
ever, "betwixt being 'shamed for doing the right, and for doing the
wrong?"

"But--pardon me, Sir--you