stress, 'twas not so!" cried the poor thing, sobbing and struggling.
"'Twas not so, madam!"

"Madam, you will kill the woman," wept Mistress Wimpole. "I beseech
you--! 'Tis not seemly, I beseech--"

Mistress Clorinda flung her woman from her and threw the brush at
Mistress Wimpole, crying at her with the lordly rage she had been wont to
shriek with when she wore breeches.

"Damnation to thy seemliness!" she cried, "and to thee too! Get thee
gone--from me, both--get thee gone from my sight!"

And both women fled weeping, and sobbing, and gasping from the room
incontinently.

She was shrewish and sullen with her woman for days after, and it was the
poor creature's labour to keep from her sight, when she dressed her head,
the place from whence the lock had been taken. In the servants' hall the
woman vowed that it was not she who had cut it, that she had had no
accident, though it was true she had used the scissors about her head,
yet it was but in snipping a ribbon, and she had not touched a hair.

"If she were another lady," she said, "I should swear some gallant had
robbed her of it; but, forsooth, she does not allow them to come near
enough for such sport, and with five feet of hair wound up in coronals,
how could a man unwind a lock, even if 'twas permitted him to stand at
her very side."

Two years passed, and the beauty had no greater fields to conquer than
those she found in the country, since her father, Sir Jeoffry, had not
the money to take her to town, he becoming more and more involved and so
fallen into debt that it was even whispered that at times it went hard
with him to keep even the poor household he had.

Mistress Clorinda's fortunes the gentry of the neighbourhood discussed
with growing interest and curiosity. What was like to become of her
great gifts and powers in the end, if she could never show them to the
great world, and have the chance to carry her splendid wares to the
fashionable market where there were men of quality and wealth who would
be like to bid for them. She had not chosen to accept any of those who
had offered themselves so far, and it was believed that for some reason
she had held off my lord of Dunstanwolde in his suit. 'Twas evident that
he admired her greatly, and why he had not already made her his countess
was a sort of mystery which was productive of many discussions and bore
much talking over. Some said that, with all her beauty and his
admiration, he was wary