The river ran sparkling on its way to the sea; the barges and wherries, and larger craft that anchored in the stream or plied their way up and down, gave animation and brightness to the great water way; whilst the old bridge, with its quaint-timbered houses with their projecting upper stories, its shops with their swinging signs, and noisy apprentices crying their masters’ wares or playing or quarrelling in the open street, and its throngs of passers by, from the blind beggar to the gay court gallant, provided a shifting and endless panorama of entertainment to the onlooker, which pretty Mistress Cherry certainly appreciated, if no one else in that grave Puritan household did the like.  But possibly she thought that her aunt’s question must not be too literally answered, for she hastily skipped across the panelled chamber, seized her distaff, and answered meekly;

“I am about to spin, aunt.”

“Humph!” the answer sounded more like a grunt than anything else, and warned Cherry that Mistress Susan, her father’s sister, who had ruled his household for the past ten years, since the death of his wife, was in no very amiable temper.

“I know what that means.  Thy spinning is a fine excuse for idling away thy time in the parlour, when thou mightest be learning housewifery below.  Much flax thou spinnest when I am not by to watch!  It is a pity thou wert not a fine lady born!”

Cherry certainly was decidedly of this opinion herself, albeit she would not have dared to say as much.  She liked soft raiment, bright colours, dainty ways, and pretty speeches.  Looking down from her window upon the passers by, it was her favourite pastime to fancy herself one of the hooped and powdered and gorgeously-apparelled ladies, with their monstrous farthingales, their stiff petticoats, their fans, their patches, and their saucy, coquettish ways to the gentlemen in their train.  All this bedizenment, which had by no means died out with the death of a Queen who had loved and encouraged it, was dear to the eyes of the little maiden, whose own sad-coloured garments and severe simplicity of attire was a constant source of annoyance to her.  Not that she wished to ape the fine dames in her small person.  She knew her place better than that.  She was a tradesman’s daughter, and it would ill have beseemed her to attire herself in silk and velvet, even though the sumptuary laws had been repealed.  But she did not see why she might not have a scarlet under-petticoat like Rachel Dyson, her own cousin, or a gay bird’s wing to adorn her hat on holiday occasions.  The utmost she had ever achieved for herself was a fine soft coverchief for her head, instead of the close unyielding coif which all her relatives wore, which quite concealed their hair, and gave a quaint severity to their square and homely faces.  Cherry’s face was not square, but a little pointed, piquant countenance, from which a pair of long-lashed gray eyes looked forth with saucy, mischievous brightness.  Her skin was very fair, with a peach-like bloom upon it, and her pretty hair hung round it in a mass of red gold curls.