will be no beauty who will wear another like it; or should there be one,
she will not carry it as you will."

"But the man--the man, Anne," Clorinda laughed again. "What of the man?"

Anne plucked up just enough of her poor spirit to raise her eyes to the
brilliant ones that mocked at her.

"With such gentlemen, sister," she said, "is it like that _I_ have aught
to do?"

Mistress Clorinda dropped her hand and left laughing.

"'Tis true," she said, "it is not; but for this one time, Anne, thou
lookest almost a woman."

"'Tis not beauty alone that makes womanhood," said Anne, her head on her
breast again. "In some book I have read that--that it is mostly pain. I
am woman enough for that."

"You have read--you have read," quoted Clorinda. "You are the bookworm,
I remember, and filch romances and poems from the shelves. And you have
read that it is mostly pain that makes a woman? 'Tis not true. 'Tis a
poor lie. _I_ am a woman and I do not suffer--for I _will_ not, that I
swear! And when I take an oath I keep it, mark you! It is men women
suffer for; that was what your scholar meant--for such fine gentlemen as
the one you have just watched while he rode away. More fools they! No
man shall make _me_ womanly in such a fashion, I promise you! Let _them_
wince and kneel; _I_ will not."