be out in the sunshine. Good
lack, but I do owe a pretty penny to Master Doctor _Luther_ for that
commentary! I have had to sit and read it a good score of times when it
should have done me marvellous ease to have boxed his ears with it. Had
I been Mistress _Katherine_, it should have gone hard with me but I
would have pulled Master Doctor out of his study, and made him lake with
little _Jack_ and _Maudlin_, in the stead of toiling o'er yon old musty
commentary. _Nell_ saith she loveth to read it. In good sooth, but I
wish she may!

Well! matins o'er, come the communion, for which all tarried but
_Edith_; she, not being yet confirmed, is alway packed off ere it begin.
And when that were o'er--and I do love the last _Amen_ of all--went all
we to dinner with Mistress _Huthwaite_, at whose house we do ever dine
of a _Sunday_: and mighty late it is of a communion _Sunday_; and I am
well-nigh famished ere I break bread. And for dinner was corned beef
and carrots, and for drink sherris-sack and muscadel. Then, at three o'
the clock, all we again to church: and by the same token, if Dr _Meade_
gave us not two full hours of a sermon, then will I sell my gold chain
for two pence. And at after church, in the porch were my Lord _Dilston_
and fair Mistress _Jane_; and my Lord was pleased to take _Father_ by
the hand, and _Mother_ and Aunt _Joyce_ likewise; but did but kiss us
maids. [Note 1.] But Mistress _Jane_ took us all three by the hand,
and did say unto me that she would fain be better acquainted. And in
very deed, it should be a feather in my cap were I to come unto close
friendship with my Lord _Dilston_ his daughter, as I do right heartily
trust I may. Nor, after all, were it any such great preferment for me,
that am daughter unto Sir _Aubrey Louvaine_ of _Selwick_ Hall, Knight,
which is cousin unto my right honourable Lord the Earl of _Oxenford_,
and not so far off neither. For my most honourable Lord, Sir _Aubrey de
Vere_, sometime Earl of _Oxenford_, was great-great-great-grandfather
unto my Lord that now is: and his sister, my Lady _Margaret_, wife to
Sir _Nicholas Louvaine_, was great-great-grandmother unto _Father_: so
they twain be cousins but four and an half times removed: and, good
lack, what is this? Surely, I need not to plume me upon Mistress _Jane
Radcliffe_ her notice and favour. If the _Radcliffes_ be an old house,
as in very deed they be, so be the _Veres_ and the _Louvaines_ both: to
say n