“Ay, father!” she cried, “that we would!  Zelma and I have never seen any players, save the tumblers over at the Hall, on Sir Harry’s birthday, and we are in sad need of a little pleasuring.”

“Who spoke to you, or of you, Mistress Bessie?” replied the Squire, playfully.  “And what is all your useless, chattering life but pleasuring?  The playhouse is but a perilous place for giddy-brained lasses like you; but for once, harkee, for once, we’ll venture on taking you, if you’ll promise to keep your silly head safe under the mother-hen’s wing.”

“Not so close but that I can get a peep at the players now and then,” said Bessie, archly.  “They say there are some handsome young men and a pretty woman or two among them.  Eh, Zelma?”

“Handsome young men!—­pretty women!” exclaimed the Squire, with an explosive snort of contempt.  “An arrant set of vagabonds and tramps,—­of ranting, strutting, apish creatures, with neither local habitations nor names of their own.  And what does Zelma know about them?  Out with it, girl!”

The person thus addressed, without lifting the folds of a heavy window-curtain which concealed her, replied in a quiet, though somewhat haughty tone,—­

“I saw them all, yesterday afternoon, on their way to Arden.  I found them near the entrance to our avenue.  One of their carts had broken down, and somebody was hurt.  I dismounted to see if I could be of any assistance.  My pony pulled away from me and ran up the road.  One of the young men caught her for me.  I told Cousin Bessie I thought him handsome and proud enough for a lord.  I think so still.  That is all I know of the players.”

“And, gad, that’s enough!  Take you to the play, indeed!  Why, we shall have you strolling next, like your”—­Here the Squire, for some reason known to himself, suddenly paused and grew very red in the face.  Dame Margery took the word, and, in a tone meant to be severe, but which was only dry, remarked,—­

“Zelma is quite too young to go to the play.”

“Just one week younger than my Cousin Bessie.  So, please you, aunt, I will wait a few days,” was the quiet reply from the invisible.

“Right cleverly answered, lass!” said the Squire, with a good-humored chuckle.  “Well, we will try you, too, for once; but mind, if I find you making eyes at any of the villains, I’ll cut you off with a shilling.”

“That is more than I look for from you, Uncle Roger,” replied the hitherto hidden speaker, emerging from the window-seat, holding in her hand the fashionable and interminable novel of “Sir Charles Grandison.”  As she spoke, she laughed lightly, but her voice was somewhat cold and bitter, and there was in her laugh more of defiance than merriment.

“Oh, don’t, Zella!” exclaimed the Squire, with a look of comic deprecation,—­“don’t speak in that way to your old uncle!  He’s blunt and rough-spoken, but he means kindly, and does kindly, in his way,—­don’t he?”