gainst gossip in such a way that none can gainsay her
high virtue. Her spirit is too great to allow that she may even _seem_
to be as the town ladies. She will not have it! Sir John will not find
his court easy to pay. She will not allow that he shall be able to say
to any one that he has seen her alone a moment. Thus, she says, he
cannot boast. If all ladies were as wise and cunning, there would be no
tales to tell." She talked long and garrulously, and set forth to them
how Mistress Clorinda had looked straight at her with her black eyes,
until she had almost shaken as she sat, because it seemed as though she
dared her to disobey her will; and how she had sat with her hair trailing
upon the floor over the chair's back, and at first it had seemed that she
was flushed with anger, but next as if she had smiled.

"Betimes," said Mistress Wimpole, "I am afraid when she smiles, but to-
night some thought had crossed her mind that pleased her. I think it was
that she liked to think that he who has conquered so many ladies will
find that he is to be outwitted and made a mock of. She likes that
others shall be beaten if she thinks them impudent. She liked it as a
child, and would flog the stable-boys with her little whip until they
knelt to beg her pardon for their freedoms."

That night Mistress Anne went to her bed-chamber with her head full of
wandering thoughts, and she had not the power to bid them disperse
themselves and leave her--indeed, she scarce wished for it. She was
thinking of Clorinda, and wondering sadly that she was of so high a pride
that she could bear herself as though there were no human weakness in her
breast, not even the womanly weakness of a heart. How could it be
possible that she could treat with disdain this gallant gentleman, if he
loved her, as he surely must? Herself she had been sure that she had
seen an ardent flame in his blue eyes, even that first day when he had
bowed to her with that air of grace as he spoke of the fragrance of the
rose leaves he had thought wafted from her robe. How could a woman whom
he loved resist him? How could she cause him to suffer by forcing him to
stand at arm's length when he sighed to draw near and breathe his passion
at her feet?

In the silence of her chamber as she disrobed, she sighed with restless
pain, but did not know that her sighing was for grief that love--of which
there seemed so little in some lives--could be wasted and flung away. S