“Fie!  For shame, Mary Connynge,” replied Lady Catharine Knollys, reprovingly.  “So far from better temperance of speech, didst ever hear of the virtue of perseverance?  Now, for my own part—­”

“And what, for your own part?  Have I no eyes to see that thou’rt puttering over the same corner this last half hour?  What is it thou art making to-day?”

The Lady Catharine paused for a moment and held her embroidery frame away from her at arm’s length, looking at it with brow puckering into a perplexed frown.

“I was working a knight,” said she.  “A tall one—­”

“Yes, a tall one, with yellow hair, I warrant.”

“Why, so it was.  I was but seeking floss of the right hue, and found it difficult.”

“And with blue eyes?”

“True; or perhaps gray.  I could not state which.  I had naught in my box would serve to suit me for the eyes.  But how know you this, Mary Connynge?” asked the Lady Catharine.

“Because I was making some such knight for myself,” replied the other.  “See!  He was to have been tall, of good figure, wearing a wide hat and plume withal.  But lest I spoil him, my knight—­now a plague take me indeed if I do not ruin him complete!” So saying, she drew with vengeful fingers at the intricately woven silks until she had indeed undone all that had gone before.

“Nay, nay!  Mary Connynge!  Do not so!” replied Lady Catharine in expostulation.  “The poor knight, how could he help himself?  Why, as for mine, though I find him not all I could wish, I’ll e’en be patient as I may, and seek if I may not mend him.  These knights, you know, are most difficult.  ’Tis hard to make them perfect.”

Mary Connynge sat with her hands in her lap, looking idly out of the window and scarce heeding the despoiled fabric which lay on her lap.  “Come, confess, Lady Kitty,” said she at length, turning toward her friend.  “Wert not trying to copy a knight of a hedge-row after all?  Did not a certain tall young knight, with eyes of blue, or gray, or the like, give pattern for your sampler while you were broidering to-day?”

“Fie!  For shame!” again replied Lady Catharine, flushing none the less.  “Rather ask, does not such a thought come over thine own broidering?  But as to the hedge-row, surely the gentleman explained it all proper enough; and I am sure—­yes, I am very sure—­that my brother Charles had quite approved of my giving the injured young man the lift in the coach—­”

“Provided that your Brother Charles had ever heard of such a thing!”

“Well, of that, to be sure, why trouble my brother over such a trifle, when ’twas so obviously proper?” argued Lady Catharine, bravely.  “And certainly, if we come to knights and the like, good chivalry has ever demanded succor for those in distress; and if, forsooth, it was two damsels in a comfortable coach, who rescued two knights from underneath a hedge-row, why, such is but the way of these modern days, when knights go seeking no more for adventures and ladies fair; as you very well know.”