looked thee well over to-night. He never looked away from the moment he
clapped eyes on thee."

"That I knew better than thee, Dad," said the beauty; "and I saw that he
could not have done it if he had tried. If there comes no richer,
younger great gentleman, he shall marry me."

"Thou hast a sharp eye and a keen wit," said Sir Jeoffry, looking askance
at her with a new maggot in his brain. "Wouldst never play the fool, I
warrant. They will press thee hard and 'twill be hard to withstand their
love-making, but I shall never have to mount and ride off with pistols in
my holsters to bring back a man and make him marry thee, as Chris Crowell
had to do for his youngest wench. Thou wouldst never play the fool, I
warrant--wouldst thou, Clo?"

She tossed her head and laughed like a young scornful devil, showing her
white pearl teeth between her lips' scarlet.

"Not I," she said. "There thou mayst trust me. _I_ would not be found
out."

She played her part as triumphant beauty so successfully that the
cleverest managing mother in the universe could not have bettered her
position. Gallants brawled for her; honest men fell at her feet;
romantic swains wrote verses to her, praising her eyes, her delicate
bosom, the carnation of her cheek, and the awful majesty of her mien. In
every revel she was queen, in every contest of beauties Venus, in every
spectacle of triumph empress of them all.

The Earl of Dunstanwolde, who had the oldest name and the richest estates