The chaplain, poor man, turned pale, having caught, as she spoke, a
glimpse of Sir Jeoffry's reddening visage.

"Madam," he faltered, bowing--"Madam, I ask pardon of you most humbly! If
it were your pleasure to deign to--to--allow me--"

She set the tankard on the table with a rollicking smack, and thrust her
hands in her breeches-pockets, swaying with laughter; and, indeed, 'twas
ringing music, her rich great laugh, which, when she grew of riper years,
was much lauded and written verses on by her numerous swains.

"If 'twere my pleasure to go away and allow you to speak, free from the
awkwardness of a young lady's presence," she said. "But 'tis not, as it
happens, and if I stay here, I shall be a protection."

In truth, he required one. Sir Jeoffry broke into a torrent of
blasphemy. He damned both kinsman and chaplain, and raged at the
impudence of both in daring to approach him, swearing to horsewhip my
lord if they ever met, and to have the chaplain kicked out of the house,
and beyond the park gates themselves. But Mistress Clorinda chose to
make it her whim to take it in better humour, and as a joke with a fine
point to it. She laughed at her father's storming, and while the
chaplain quailed before it with pallid countenance and fairly hang-dog
look, she seemed to find it but a cause for outbursts of merriment.

"Hold thy tongue a bit, Dad," she cried, when he had reached his loudest,
"and let his reverence tell us what his message is. We have not even
heard it."