‘It is not yet too late, I hope,’ returned the workman-lord.  ’I confess I was disappointed to find your curiosity went no further.  I hoped I had at last found a lady capable of some interest in pursuits like mine.  For my lady Margaret here, she cares not a straw for anything I do, and would rather have me keep my hands clean than discover the mechanism of the primum mobile!

‘Yes, in truth, Ned,’ said his wife, ’I would rather have thee with fair hands in my sweet parlour, than toiling and moiling in this dirty dungeon, with no companion but that horrible fire-engine of thine, grunting and roaring all night long.’

‘Why, what do you make of Caspar Kaltoff, my lady?’

‘I make not much of him.’

‘You misjudge his goodfellowship then.’

’Truly, I think not well of him:  he always hath secrets with thee, and I like it not.’

’That they are secrets is thine own fault, Peggy.  How can I teach thee my secrets if thou wilt not open thine ears to hear them?’

‘I would your lordship would teach me!’ said Dorothy.  ’I might not be an apt pupil, but I should be both an eager and a humble one.’

’By St. Patrick! mistress Dorothy, but you go straight to steal my husband’s heart from me.  “Humble,” forsooth! and “eager” too!  Nay! nay!  If I have no part in his brain, I can the less yield his heart.’

‘What would be gladly learned would be gladly taught, cousin,’ said lord Herbert.

‘There! there!’ exclaimed lady Margaret; ’I knew it would be so.  You discharge your poor dull apprentice the moment you find a clever one!’

‘And why not?  I never was able to teach thee anything.’

‘Ah, Ned, there you are unkind indeed!’ said lady Margaret, with something in her voice that suggested the water-springs were swelling.

‘My shamrock of four!’ said her husband in the tenderest tone, ’I but jested with thee.  How shouldst thou be my pupil in anything I can teach?  I am yours in all that is noble and good.  I did not mean to vex you, sweet heart.’

‘’Tis gone again, Ned,’ she answered, smiling.  ’Give cousin Dorothy her first lesson.’

’It shall be that, then, to which I sought in vain to make thee listen this very morning—­a certain great saying of my lord of Verulam, mistress Dorothy.  I had learnt it by heart that I might repeat it word for word to my lady, but she would none of it.’

‘May I not hear it, madam?’ said Dorothy.

’We will both hear it, Herbert, if you will pardon your foolish wife and admit her to grace.’  And as she spoke she laid her hand on his sooty arm.

He answered her only with a smile, but such a one as sufficed.

‘Listen then, ladies both,’ he said.  ’My lord of Verulam, having quoted the words of Solomon, “The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out,” adds thus, of his own thought concerning them,—­“as if,” says my lord, “according to the innocent play of children, the divine majesty took delight to hide his works, to the end to have them found out, and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God’s playfellows in that game, considering the great commandment of wits and means, whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them."’