"Who are gone?" asked Grisell, turning as well as she could under the
great heraldically-embroidered covering.
"Leonard Copeland and his father. Did'st not hear the horses' tramp
in the court?"
"I thought it was only my lord's horses going to the water."
"It was the Copelands going off without breaking their fast or taking
a stirrup cup, like discourteous rogues as they be," said Margaret,
in no measured language.
"And are they gone? And wherefore?" asked Grisell.
"Wherefore? but for fear my noble uncle of Salisbury should hold them
to their contract. Sir William sat as surly as a bear just about to
be baited, while thy mother rated and raved at him like a very
sleuth-hound on the chase. And Leonard--what think'st thou he saith?
"That he would as soon wed the loathly lady as thee," the cruel
Somerset villain as he is; and yet my brother Edmund is fain to love
him. So off they are gone, like recreant curs as they are, lest my
uncle should make them hear reason."
"But Lady Madge, dear Lady Madge, am I so very loathly?" asked poor
Grisell.
"Mine aunt of Salisbury bade that none should tell thee," responded
Margaret, in some confusion.
"Ah me! I must know sooner or later! My mother, she shrieked at
sight of me!"
"I would not have your mother," said the outspoken daughter of "proud
Cis." "My Lady Duchess mother is stern enough if we do not bridle
our heads, and if we make ourselves too friendly with the meine, but
she never frets nor rates us, and does not heed so long as we do not
demean ourselves unlike our royal blood.
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