Comes a clatter of slippered heels on the hall floor and in bustles my
Lady Kirke, bejewelled and befrilled and beflounced till I had thought
no mortal might bend in such massive casings of starch.
"La," she pants, "good lack!--Wellaway! My fine savage! Welladay!
What a pretty mischief have you been working? Proposals are amaking at
the foot of the stairs. O--lud! The preacher was akissing that little
Puritan maid as I came by! Good lack, what will Sir John say?"
And my lady laughs and laughs till I look to see the tears stain the
rouge of her cheeks.
"O-lud," she laughs, "I'm like to die! He tried to kiss the baggage!
And the little saint jumps back so quick that he hit her ear by
mistake! La," she laughs, "I'm like to die!"
I'd a mind to tell her ladyship that a loosening of her stays might
prolong life, but I didn't. Instead, I delivered the message from
Pierre Radisson and took myself off a mighty mad man; for youth can be
angry, indeed. And the cause of the anger was the same as fretteth the
Old World and New to-day. Rebecca was measuring Jack by old standards.
I was measuring Rebecca by new standards. And the measuring of the old
by the new and the new by the old teareth love to tatters.
Pierre Radisson I met at the entrance to the Fur Company's offices in
Broad Street.
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