should be _English_, _Bess_?" saith _Father_, smiling.
"What an' it were _Italian_ or _Greek_?"

"Good lack, that could never be!" crieth she. "Why, do but think the
trouble all men should have."

"Somebody must have it," quoth he. "I take it, what so were the tongue,
all nations but one should have to learn it."

"I'll not credit it, Sir _Aubrey_," crieth _Bess_, as she trotteth off
to the kitchen. "It is like to be _English_ that shall become the
common tongue of the earth: it can't be no elsewise!"

_Mynheer_ seemed wonderful taken with this fantasy of Cousin _Bess_.

"How strange a thought that!" saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"_Bess_ is in good company," answereth _Father_. "'Tis right the
reasoning of Saint _Cyril_, when he maketh argument that the Temple of
God, wherein the Man of Sin shall sit (as _Paul_ saith), cannot signify
the _Christian_ Church. But wherefore, good Sir? say you. Oh, saith
he, because `God forbid it should be this temple wherein we now are!'"

"Well, it is a marvel to me," quoth Aunt _Joyce_, "that some folks seem
to have no brains!"

"Is it so great a marvel?" saith _Father_.

"But they have no wit!" saith she. "Why, here yestereven was _Caitlin_,
telling me the sun had put the fire out--she'd let it go out, the lazy
tyke as she is!--Then said I, `But how so, _Caitlin_, when there hath
been no sun?' (You wist how hard it rained all day.) `Ha!' saith she--
and gazed into the black grate, as though it should have helped her to
an other excuse. Which to all appearance it did, for in a minute quoth
my wiseacre,--`Then an' it like you, Mistress, it was the light.'"

"A lack of power to perceive the relation betwixt cause and effect,"
saith _Father_, drily, "A lack of common sense!" saith Aunt _Joyce_.

"The uncommonest thing that is," quoth _Father_.

"But wherefore should the sun put the fire out?" saith Sir _Robert_.

"Nay, I'll let alone the whys and the wherefores," quoth she. "It doth,
and that is enough for me."

_Father_ seemed something diverted in himself, but he said nought more.

All the morrow were we busy in the kitchen, and the afternoon a-work:
but in the even come all the young folks to keep _Nell's_ birthday--to
wit, the _Lewthwaites_, the _Armstrongs_, the _Murthwaites_, the
_Parks_, and so forth. Of course _Robin_ had no eyes nor ears for aught
but _Milisent_. And for all Master _Ned_ may say of his being so rare
heart-free, I did think he might have talked l