lace her stomacher before setting about
their own clothing. White-haired and with a wrinkled face, she
appeared, under her rich clothes, like some will-less and pallid
captive that had been gorgeously bedizened to grace a conqueror's
triumph. She was cousin to the late Queen Anne Boleyn, and the terror
of her own escape, when the Queen and so many of her house had been
swept away, seemed still to remain in the drawing-in of her eyes. In
the mien of the youngest girls there, there could be seen a strained
tenseness of lids and lips as though, in the midst of laughter, they
were hearkening for distant sounds or the rustle of listeners behind
the tapestry. And where a small door came into one wall they had
pulled down the arras from in front of it, so that no one should enter
unobserved. Lady Rochford addressed herself to Katharine with limp
gestures of protest:

'God knows I would help you to a gown, but we have no more than we are
granted; here are seven ladies and seven dresses. Where can another be
got? The King's Highness knoweth little of ladies' gowns or he had
never ordered one against to-night. Each of those hath taken the women
seven weeks to sew.'

Udal said with a touch of anger, since it enraged him to have to
invent further, as if the one lie about the King were not enough: 'The
Lord Privy Seal commanded very strictly this thing to be done. He is
this lady's very diligent protector. Have a care how you disoblige
her.'

The ladies rustled their slight clothing at that name, turned their
backs, and looked at Katharine above their shoulders. The Lady
Rochford recoiled so far that her skirts were in danger from the fire
in the great hearth; her woebegone, flaccid face was suddenly drawn at
the mention of Cromwell, and she appeared about to kneel at
Katharine's feet. She looked round at the figures of the girls.

'One of these can stay if your ladyship will wear her dress,' she
flustered. 'But who is tall enow? Cicely is too long in the shank.
Bess's shoulders are too broad. Alack! God help me! I will do what I
can'--and she waved her hands disconsolately.

Cold, fatigue, and her maimed arm made Katharine waver on her feet.
This white-haired woman's panic seemed to her grotesque and
disgusting.

'Why, the magister lies,' she said. 'I am no such friend of Privy
Seal's.'

Swift and wicked glances passed among the girls; the dark one threw
back her head and laughed discordantly, like a magpie. She came with