It was, however, still his way to accept frequent hospitalities from his kinsman Eldershawe, and Sir Jeoffry was always rejoiced enough to secure him as his companion for a few days when he could lure him from the dissipation of the town.  At such times it never failed that Mistress Wimpole and poor Anne kept their guard.  Clorinda never allowed them to relax their vigilance, and Mistress Wimpole ceased to feel afraid, and became accustomed to her duties, but Anne never did so.  She looked always her palest and ugliest when Sir John was in the house, and she would glance with sad wonder and timid adoration from him to Clorinda; but sometimes when she looked at Sir John her plain face would grow crimson, and once or twice he caught her at the folly, and when she dropped her eyes overwhelmed with shame, he faintly smiled to himself, seeing in her a new though humble conquest.

There came a day when in the hunting-field there passed from mouth to mouth a rumour, and Sir Jeoffry, hearing it, came pounding over on his big black horse to his daughter and told it to her in great spirits.

“He is a sly dog, John Oxon,” he said, a broad grin on his rubicund face.  “This very week he comes to us, and he and I are cronies, yet he has blabbed nothing of what is being buzzed about by all the world.”

“He has learned how to keep a closed mouth,” said Mistress Clorinda, without asking a question.

“But ’tis marriage he is so mum about, bless ye!” said Sir Jeoffry.  “And that is not a thing to be hid long.  He is to be shortly married, they say.  My lady, his mother, has found him a great fortune in a new beauty but just come to town.  She hath great estates in the West Indies, as well as a fine fortune in England—­and all the world is besieging her; but Jack hath come and bowed sighing before her, and writ some verses, and borne her off from them all.”

“’Tis time,” said Clorinda, “that he should marry some woman who can pay his debts and keep him out of the spunging house, for to that he will come if he does not play his cards with skill.”

Sir Jeoffry looked at her askance and rubbed his red chin.

“I wish thou hadst liked him, Clo,” he said, “and ye had both had fortunes to match.  I love the fellow, and ye would have made a handsome pair.”

Mistress Clorinda laughed, sitting straight in her saddle, her fine eyes unblenching, though the sun struck them.

“We had fortunes to match,” she said—­“I was a beggar and he was a spendthrift.  Here comes Lord Dunstanwolde.”

And as the gentleman rode near, it seemed to his dazzled eyes that the sun so shone down upon her because she was a goddess and drew it from the heavens.

In the west wing of the Hall ’twas talked of between Mistress Wimpole and her charges, that a rumour of Sir John Oxon’s marriage was afloat.

“Yet can I not believe it,” said Mistress Margery; “for if ever a gentleman was deep in love, though he bitterly strove to hide it, ’twas Sir John, and with Mistress Clorinda.”