"May I ask her appearance, sir?" said Tressilian.

"Oh, sir," replied Master Goldthred, "I promise you, she was in

gentlewoman's attire--a very quaint and pleasing dress, that might have

served the Queen herself; for she had a forepart with body and sleeves,

of ginger-coloured satin, which, in my judgment, must have cost by the

yard some thirty shillings, lined with murrey taffeta, and laid down and

guarded with two broad laces of gold and silver. And her hat, sir, was

truly the best fashioned thing that I have seen in these parts, being of

tawny taffeta, embroidered with scorpions of Venice gold, and having a

border garnished with gold fringe--I promise you, sir, an absolute

and all-surpassing device. Touching her skirts, they were in the old

pass-devant fashion."

"I did not ask you of her attire, sir," said Tressilian, who had shown

some impatience during this conversation, "but of her complexion--the

colour of her hair, her features."

"Touching her complexion," answered the mercer, "I am not so special

certain, but I marked that her fan had an ivory handle, curiously

inlaid. And then again, as to the colour of her hair, why, I can

warrant, be its hue what it might, that she wore above it a net of green

silk, parcel twisted with gold."

"A most mercer-like memory!" said Lambourne. "The gentleman asks him of

the lady's beauty, and he talks of her fine clothes!"

"I tell thee," said the mercer, somewhat disconcerted, "I had little

time to look at her; for just as I was about to give her the good time

of day, and for that purpose had puckered my features with a smile--"

"Like those of a jackanape simpering at a chestnut," said Michael

Lambourne.

"Up started of a sudden," continued Goldthred, without heeding the

interruption, "Tony Foster himself, with a cudgel in his hand--"

"And broke thy head across, I hope, for thine impertinence," said his

entertainer.

"That were more easily said than done," answered Goldthred indignantly;

"no, no--there was no breaking of heads. It's true, he advanced his

cudgel, and spoke of laying on, and asked why I did not keep the

public road, and such like; and I would have knocked him over the pate

handsomely for his pains, only for the lady's presence, who might have

swooned, for what I know."

"Now, out upon thee for a faint-spirited slave!" said Lambourne; "what

adventurous knight ever thought of the lady's terror, when he went

to thwack giant, dragon, or magician, in her presence, and for her

deliverance? But why talk to thee of dragons, who would be driven back

by a dragon-fly. There thou hast missed the rarest opportunity!"




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