"In good sooth, am I all mistaken?" Judith said, glancing keenly at her.
"Do you doubt my word, Judith?" said she.
"And yet," her friend said, as if to herself, and musingly, "there were several occasions: there was the fortune-teller at Hampton Lucy that coupled you, and Quiney seemed right merry withal; and then again, when he would have us play kiss-in-the-ring on the evening after Mary Sadler's marriage, and I forbade it chiefly for your sake, sweet mouse, then methought you seemed none overpleased with my interference----"
But here she happened to look at Prudence, and she could not fail to see that the whole subject was infinitely distressing to her. There was a proud, hurt expression on the gentle face, and a red spot burning in each cheek. So Judith took hold of her and kissed her.
"Once and forever, dearest heart," said she, "I banish all such thoughts. And I will make no more plans for thee, nor suspect thee, but let thee go in thine own way, in the paths of charity and goodness. But I mean not to give up thy friendship, sweet Prue; if I cannot walk in the same path, at least I may stretch a hand over to thee; and if I but keep so near so true a saint, marry, I shall not go so far wrong."
"Shall we go down and see Julius?" said she.
"But Tom Quiney, Judith--what shall I say?" Prudence asked, anxiously.
"Why, say nothing, sweetheart," was the immediate answer. "'Twas a shame to burden you with such a task. When he chooses he can at any moment have speech of me, if his worship be not too proud or too suspicious. In Stratford we can all of us speak the English tongue, I hope."
"But, Judith," said the other, slowly and wistfully, "twenty years is a long space for one to be away from his native land."
"Marry is it, sweet mouse," Judith answered, as she opened the door and proceeded to go down the narrow wooden steps. "'Tis a long space indeed, and at the end of it many a thing that seemeth of great import and consequence now will be no better than an old tale, idle and half forgotten."
It was somewhat hard on little Bess Hall that her aunt Judith was determined she should grow up as fearless as she herself was, and had, indeed, charged herself with this branch of her niece's education. The child, it is true, was not more timid than others of her age, and could face with fair equanimity beggars, school-boys, cows, geese, and other dangerous creatures; while as for ghosts, goblins, and similar nocturnal terrors, Judith had settled all that side of the question by informing the maids of both families, in the plainest language, that any one of them found even mentioning such things to this niece of hers would be instantaneously and without ceremony shot forth from the house. But beyond and above all this Judith expected too much, and would flout and scold when Bess Hall declined to perform the impossible, and would threaten to go away and get a small boy out of the school to become her playmate in future. At this moment, for example, she was standing at the foot of the staircase in Dr. Hall's house. She had come round to carry off her niece for the day, and she had dressed her up like a small queen, and now she would have her descend the wide and handsome staircase in noble state and unaided. Bess Hall, who had no ambition to play the part of a queen, but had, on the other hand, a wholesome and instinctive fear of breaking her neck, now stood on the landing, helpless amid all her finery, and looking down at her aunt in a beseeching sort of way.