The number of gentlemen was greatly in excess, so that Humfrey had no such agreeable occupation, but had to stand in a herd among other young men, watching with no gratified eye Antony Babington, in a graceful attitude at Cicely’s feet, while she conversed with him with untiring animation.

Humfrey was not the only one to remark them.  Lady Shrewsbury nodded once or twice to herself as one who had discovered what she sought, and the next morning a mandate arrived at Bridgefield that Master Richard and his wife should come to speak with my Lady Countess.

Richard and his son were out of reach, having joined a party of the guests who had gone out hunting.  Susan had to go alone, for she wished to keep Cicely as much as possible out of her Ladyship’s sight, so she left the girl in charge of her keys, so that if father brought home any of the hunters to the midday meal, tankards and glasses might not be lacking.

The Countess’s summons was to her own bower, a sort of dressing-room, within her great state bed-room, and with a small glazed window looking down into the great hall where her ladies sat at work, whence she could on occasion call down orders or directions or reproofs.  Susan had known what it was to stand in dread of such a window at Chatsworth or Hardwicke, whence shrill shrieks of objurgation, followed sometimes by such missiles as pincushions, shoes, or combs.  However the window was now closed, and my Lady sat in her arm-chair, as on a throne, a stool being set, to which she motioned her kinswoman.

“So!  Susan Talbot,” she said, “I have sent for you to do you a good turn, for you are mine own kinswoman of the Hardwicke blood, and have ever been reasonably humble and dutiful towards me and my Lord.”

Mrs. Talbot did not by any means view this speech as the insult it would in these days appear to a lady of her birth and position, but accepted it as the compliment it was intended to be.

“Thus,” continued Lady Shrewsbury, “I have always cast about how to marry that daughter of yours fitly.  It would have been done ere now, had not that Scottish woman’s tongue made mischief between me and my Lord, but I am come home to rule my own house now, and mine own blood have the first claim on me.”

The alarm always excited by a summons to speak with my Lady Countess began to acquire definite form, and Susan made answer, “Your Ladyship is very good, but I doubt me whether my husband desires to bestow Cicely in marriage as yet.”

“He hath surely received no marriage proposals for her without my knowledge or my Lord’s,” said Bess of Hardwicke, who was prepared to strain all feudal claims to the uttermost.

“No, madam, but—­”

“Tell me not that you or he have the presumption to think that my son William Cavendish or even Edward Talbot will ever cast an eye on a mere portionless country maid, not comely, nor even like the Hardwickes or the Talbots.  If I thought so for a moment, never shouldst thou darken these doors again, thou ungrateful, treacherous woman.”