His step was not altogether so steady as it might have been, as he swaggered into his mother’s presence.  His handsome face was deeply flushed.  He was laughing boisterously; but there was that in his aspect which made his sister turn away with a look of repulsion, though his mother’s glance rested on him with a look of admiring pride that savoured of adoration.  In her fond and foolish eyes he was perfection, and the more he copied the vices and the follies of the gallants about the person of the King, the prouder did his vain and weak mother become of him.

“Ho! ho! ho! such a bit of fun!”

It is impossible to give Frederick Mason’s words verbatim, as he seldom opened his lips without an oath, and inter-larded his talk with coarse jests in English and fragments of ribaldry in vile French, till it would scarce be intelligible to the reader of today.

“Such a prime bit of fun!  Who would have thought that little Dorcas next door would grow up such a marvelous pretty damsel!  By my troth, what a slap she did give me in return for my kiss!”

Gertrude suddenly turned upon her brother with flashing eyes.

“Think shame of yourself, Frederick!  You disgrace your boasted manhood.  How dare you annoy with your coarse gallantry the daughter of our father’s oldest friend, and that too in the open streets!”

“How dare you speak so to your brother, girl?” cried Madam, bristling up like an angry mother hen.  “What call have you to chide him?  Is he answerable to you for his acts?”

Gertrude subsided into silence, for she could not answer back as she would have liked.  It was not for her to argue with her mother; and Madam, having vanquished her daughter, turned upon her son.

“You must have a care how you vex our neighbours, for your father would take it ill an he heard of it.  Nay, I would not myself that you mixed yourself up too much with them.  They are honest good folks enow, but scarce such as are fitting company for us.  What of this girl Dorcas?  Is not she the one who is waiting maid to that mad old witch woman in Allhallowes, Lady Scrope?”

“That may well be.  I saw her come forth from a grim portal hard by Allhallowes the Less.  I knew not who it was, but I gave chase, and ere she put her foot upon the bridge, I had plucked the hood from off her pretty curls, and had kissed her soundly on both cheeks.  And at that she gave me such a cuff as I feel yet, and ran like a fawn, and I after her, till she vanished within the door of our neighbour’s house; and then it came to me that it was Dorcas, grown wondrous pretty since I last took note of her.  If she comes always home at this hour, I’ll waylay my lady again and take toll of her.”

“You had better be careful not to let Reuben get wind of it” said Gertrude, with suppressed anger in her voice.  “If he were to catch you insulting his sister, it is more than a slap or a cuff you would get.”