ith a small glazed window looking
down into the great hall where her ladies sat at work, whence she could
on occasion call down orders or directions or reproofs. Susan had known
what it was to stand in dread of such a window at Chatsworth or
Hardwicke, whence shrill shrieks of objurgation, followed sometimes by
such missiles as pincushions, shoes, or combs. However the window was
now closed, and my Lady sat in her arm-chair, as on a throne, a stool
being set, to which she motioned her kinswoman.

"So! Susan Talbot," she said, "I have sent for you to do you a good
turn, for you are mine own kinswoman of the Hardwicke blood, and have
ever been reasonably humble and dutiful towards me and my Lord."

Mrs. Talbot did not by any means view this speech as the insult it
would in these days appear to a lady of her birth and position, but
accepted it as the compliment it was intended to be.

"Thus," continued Lady Shrewsbury, "I have always cast about how to
marry that daughter of yours fitly. It would have been done ere now,
had not that Scottish woman's tongue made mischief between me and my
Lord, but I am come home to rule my own house now, and mine own blood
have the first claim on me."

The alarm always excited by a summons to speak with my Lady Countess
began to acquire definite form, and Susan made answer, "Your Ladyship
is very good, but I doubt me whether my husband desires to bestow
Cicely in marriage as yet."

"He hath surely received no marriage proposals for her without my
knowledge or my Lord's," said Bess of Hardwicke, who was prepared to
strain all feudal claims to the uttermost.

"No, madam, but--"

"Tell me not that you or he have the presumption to think that my son
William Cavendish or even Edward Talbot will ever cast an eye on a mere
portionless country maid, not comely, nor even like the Hardwickes or
the Talbots. If I thought so for a moment, never shouldst thou darken
these doors again, thou ungrateful, treacherous woman."

"Neither of us ever had the thought, far less the wish," said Susan
most sincerely.

"Well, thou wast ever a simple woman, Susan Talbot," said the great
lady, thereby meaning truthful, "so I will e'en take thy word for it,
the more readily that I made contracts for both the lads when I was at
court. As to Dick Talbot not being fain to bestow her, I trow that is
because ye have spent too much on your long-legged sons to be able to
lay down a portion for her, though she be