'
And then Annora cried out: 'Well said, Margaret! I do believe that
you are an honest Englishwoman still.'
My brother went his way to consult with some of the other volunteers,
and my mother called for her sedan chair to go and see whether she
could get an order from Queen Henrietta to stop him, while Annora
exclaimed:
'Yes! I know how it is, and mother cannot see it. Eustace cares
little for his life now, and the only chance of his ever overgetting
it is the having something to do. How can he forget while he lives
moping here in banishment, with nothing better to do than to stroke
the Queen's spaniels?'
Then of course I asked what he had to get over. I knew he had had a
boyish admiration for Millicent Wardour, a young lady in Lady
Northumberland's household, but I had never dared inquire after her,
having heard nothing about her since I left England. My sister,
whose mistrust of me had quite given way, told me all she knew.
Eustace had prevailed on my father to make proposals of marriage for
her though not willingly, for my father did not like the politics of
her father, Sir James Wardour, and my mother did not think the young
gentlewoman a sufficient match for the heir of Walwyn and Ribaumont.
There was much haggling over the dowry and marriage portion, and in
the midst, Sir James himself took, for his second wife, a stern and
sour Puritan dame. My mother and she were so utterly alien to each
other that they affronted one another on their first introduction,
and Sir James entirely surrendered himself to his new wife; the match
was broken off, and Millicent was carried away into the country,
having returned the ring and all other tokens that Eustace had given
her.
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