Madam Cavendish was at table that night, though moving with grimaces from the stiffness of her rheumatic joints, and she ordered that the sailors be given cider, the which they drank with some haste, and were gone.  Then Madam Cavendish asked Mistress Mary, with her wonderful keenness of gaze, which I never saw excelled, “Are those the goods which you ordered by the Golden Horn?” But I answered for her, knowing that Madam Cavendish would pardon such presumption from me.  “Madam, those are the goods.  I have it from Capt.  Calvin Tabor himself.”  I spoke with no roundings nor glossings of subterfuge, having ever held that all the excuse for a lie was its boldness in a good cause, and believing in slaying a commandment like an enemy with a clean cut of the sword.

Mistress Mary gave a little gasp, and looked at me, and looked at her sister Catherine, and well I knew it was on the tip of her tongue to out with the whole to her grandmother.  And so she would doubtless have done had not her wonderment and suspicion that maybe in some wise Catherine had conspired to buy for her in England the goods of which she had cheated herself, and the terror of doing harm to her sister and me.  But never saw I a maid go so white and red and make the strife within her so evident.

We were well-nigh through supper when the goods arrived, and Madam Cavendish ordered some of the slaves to open the cases, which they did forthwith, and all my Lady Culpeper’s finery was displayed.

Never saw I such a rich assortment, and calling to mind my Lady Culpeper’s thin and sour visage, I wondered within myself whether such fine feathers might in her case suffice to make a fine bird, though some of them were for her daughter Cate, who was fair enough.  Nothing would do but Mistress Mary, with her lovely face still strange to see with her consternation of puzzlement, should severally display every piece to her grandmother, and hold against her complexion the rich stuffs to see if the colours suited her.  Madam Cavendish was pleased to express her satisfaction with them all, though with some demur at the extravagance. “’Tis rich enough a wardrobe for my Lady Culpeper,” said she, at which innocent shrewdness I was driven to hard straits to keep my face grave, but Mistress Catherine was looking on with a countenance as calm as the moon which was just then rising.

Madam Cavendish was pleased especially with one gown of a sky colour, shot with silver threads, and ordered that Mistress Mary should wear it to the ball which was to be given at the governor’s house the next night.

When I heard that I started, and Catherine shot a pale glance of consternation at me, but Mistress Mary flushed rosy-red with rebellion.

“I have no desire to attend my Lord Culpeper’s ball, madam,” said she.

“Lord Culpeper is the representative of his Majesty here in Virginia,” said Madam Cavendish, with a high head, “and no granddaughter of mine absents herself with my approval.  To the ball you go, madam, and in that sky-coloured gown, and no more words.  Things have come to a pretty pass.”  So saying, she rose and, leaning heavily on her stick, with her black maid propping her, she went out.  Then turned Mistress Mary imperiously to us and demanded to know the meaning of it all.  “Whence came these goods?” said she to Catherine.