The Heart

"As I believe, she would not have had the dress had not Cate told

Cicely Hyde, who is so intimate with Mary Cavendish," said my Lady

Culpeper. "I had it from my lord's sister that 'twas the newest

fashion in London. How else would the chit have heard of it, I pray?"

"How else, indeed?" asked the burgess's wife.

"And here my poor Cate must go in her old murrey-coloured

petticoat," said my lady.

"But even thus, to one who looks at her and not at her attire, she

outshines Mary Cavendish," said the other. That was, to my thinking,

as flagrant hypocrisy as was ever heard, for if those two maids had

been clad alike as beggars, Mary Cavendish would have carried off

the palm, with no dissenting voice, though Cate Culpeper was fair

enough to see, with her father's grace of manner, and his harshness

of feature softened by her rose-bloom of youth.

Catherine Cavendish was dancing as the others, but seemingly with no

heart in it, whereas her sister was all glowing with delight in the

merriment of it, and her sense of her own beauty, and the admiration

of all about her, and smiling as if the whole world, and at life

itself, with the innocent radiance of a child.

As I stood watching her, I felt a touch on my arm, and looked, and

there stood Mistress Cicely Hyde, and her brown face was so puckered

with wrath and jealousy that I scarcely knew her. "Did not Mary's

grandmother send you to escort her home, Master Wingfield?" said she

in a sharp whisper, and I stared at her in amazement. "When the ball

is over, Mistress Hyde," I said.

"'Tis time the ball was over now," said she. "'Tis folly to keep it

up so late as this, and Mary hath not had a word for me since we

came."

"But why do you not dance yourself, Mistress Hyde?"

"I care not to dance," said she pettishly, and with a glance of

mingled wrath and admiration at Mary Cavendish that might have

matched mine or her brother's, and I marvelled deeply at the

waywardness of a maid's heart. But then came Ralph Drake, who had

not drunken very deeply, being only flushed, and somewhat lost to

discrimination, and disposed to dance with another since he could

not have his cousin Mary, and he and Cicely went away together, and

presently, when the minuet was over and another dance on, I saw them

advancing in time, but always Cicely had that eye of watchful injury

upon Mary.