fortunes in a hurry with the first heiress whose estate suited him. But
'twas the women who said these things; the men swore that no man could
tire of or desert such spirit and beauty, and that if Sir John Oxon
stayed away 'twas because he had been commanded to do so, it never having
been Mistress Clorinda's intention to do more than play with him awhile,
she having been witty against him always for a fop, and meaning herself
to accept no man as a husband who could not give her both rank and
wealth.

"We know her," said the old boon companions of her childhood, as they
talked of her over their bottles. "She knew her price and would bargain
for it when she was not eight years old, and would give us songs and
kisses but when she was paid for them with sweet things and knickknacks
from the toy-shops. She will marry no man who cannot make her at least a
countess, and she would take him but because there was not a duke at
hand. We know her, and her beauty's ways."

But they did not know her; none knew her, save herself.

In the west wing, which grew more bare and ill-furnished as things wore
out and time went by, Mistress Anne waxed thinner and paler. She was so
thin in two months' time, that her soft, dull eyes looked twice their
natural size, and seemed to stare piteously at people. One day, indeed,
as she sat at work in her sister's room, Clorinda being there at the
time, the beauty, turning and beholding her face suddenly, uttered a
violent exclamation.

"Why look you at me so?" she said. "Your eyes stand out of your head
like a new-hatched, unfeathered bird's. They irk me with their strange
asking look. Why do you stare at me?"

"I do not know," Anne faltered. "I could not tell you, sister. My eyes
seem to stare so because of my thinness. I have seen them in my mirror."

"Why do you grow thin?" quoth Clorinda harshly. "You are not ill."

"I--I do not know," again Anne faltered. "Naught ails me. I do not
know. For--forgive me!"

Clorinda laughed.

"Soft little fool," she said, "why should you ask me to forgive you? I
might as fairly ask you to forgive _me_, that I keep my shape and show no
wasting."

Anne rose from her chair and hurried to her sister's side, sinking upon
her knees there to kiss her hand.

"Sister," she said, "one could never dream that you could need pardon. I
love you so--that all you do, it seems to me must be right--whatsoever it
might be."

Clorinda drew her fair ha