afeared I missed a good ten minutes thereof, for I wis not
well what happed, nor how I gat there, but assuredly I was a-dancing
with my Lord of _Oxenford_, and the Queen's Majesty and my Lord
_Dilston_ a-looking on, and Mistress _Jane_ as black as thunder, because
I danced better than she. I reckon _Father's_ stopping woke me, and I
said _Amen_ as well as any body. Then the Hundredth Psalm, _Nell_
a-playing on the virginals: and then (best of all) the blessing, and
then with good-night all round, to bed. I reckon my nap at prayers had
made me something wakeful, for I heard both _Nell_ and _Edith_ asleep
afore me.

SELWICK HALL, NOVEMBER YE III.
Now have I read o'er every line my philosophical sister hath writ: and
very nigh smothered me o' laughing at divers parts. The long discourses
she putteth in, touching all manner of dreary matters! I warrant, you
shall not see me to deal with the Queen's Majesty's injunctions touching
the apparel of parsons, nor with the _Dutch Mennonites_, nor with
philosophical questions touching folks' thoughts and characters, nor no
such rubbish. I like sunlight, I do. Catch me a-setting down Master
_Stuyvesant_ his dreary speeches! (I go not further, for then should it
cost me sixpence: but Master _Stuyvesant_ hath no authority over me, so
I may say what I will of him for two pence.) But it seemeth me, for all
her soberness and her killing looks, that Mistress _Helena_ is something
diverted with my speeches, else had she not put so many in. But I ought
not to have said what I did, quotha, touching _Father's_ nose! Ought I
not, forsooth? Mistress _Helena_, that shall cost you two pence, and I
shall be fain to see the fine paid.

(Eh, lack-a-day! but that shall cost me two pence! Dear heart, whatever
was _Father_ a-thinking of? I shall be as clean ruined as the velvet
doublet that _Ned_ dropped in the fish-pond!)

It seemeth me _Father_ must have desired to make a good box for the
poor. I would it had not been at my cost.

One thing is plain,--that Mistress _Nell_ keeps a conscience. I scarce
think I do. There is a cushion full of pins somewhere down near my
stomach, and now and then I get a prick: but I do but cry pish and turn
the pin end into the cushion. _Nell_, on the contrary, pulleth forth
the pin and looketh on it, holding it in all lights. But there was one
time, I mind, that I did not cry pish, and methinks every pin in