accepted it as the compliment it was intended to be.

"Thus," continued Lady Shrewsbury, "I have always cast about how to
marry that daughter of yours fitly. It would have been done ere now,
had not that Scottish woman's tongue made mischief between me and my
Lord, but I am come home to rule my own house now, and mine own blood
have the first claim on me."

The alarm always excited by a summons to speak with my Lady Countess
began to acquire definite form, and Susan made answer, "Your Ladyship
is very good, but I doubt me whether my husband desires to bestow
Cicely in marriage as yet."

"He hath surely received no marriage proposals for her without my
knowledge or my Lord's," said Bess of Hardwicke, who was prepared to
strain all feudal claims to the uttermost.

"No, madam, but--"

"Tell me not that you or he have the presumption to think that my son
William Cavendish or even Edward Talbot will ever cast an eye on a
mere portionless country maid, not comely, nor even like the
Hardwickes or the Talbots. If I thought so for a moment, never
shouldst thou darken these doors again, thou ungrateful, treacherous
woman."

"Neither of us ever had the thought, far less the wish," said Susan
most sincerely.

"Well, thou wast ever a simple woman, Susan Talbot," said the great