"
"It may be so,"--said Margaret Ramsay; "meanwhile, do you serve me
truly, and here is a ring of value in pledge, that when my fortune is
in my own hand, I will redeem the token with fifty broad pieces of
gold."
"Fifty broad pieces of gold!" repeated the dame; "and this ring, which
is a right fair one, in token you fail not of your word!--Well,
sweetheart, if I must put my throat in peril, I am sure I cannot risk
it for a friend more generous than you; and I would not think of more
than the pleasure of serving you, only Benjamin gets more idle every
day, and our family----"
"Say no more of it," said Margaret; "we understand each other. And
now, tell me what you know of this young man's affairs, which made you
so unwilling to meddle with them?"
"Of that I can say no great matter as yet," answered Dame Ursula;
"only I know, the most powerful among his own countrymen are against
him, and also the most powerful at the Court here. But I will learn
more of it; for it will be a dim print that I will not read for your
sake, pretty Mistress Margaret. Know you where this gallant dwells?"
"I heard by accident," said Margaret, as if ashamed of the minute
particularity of her memory upon such an occasion,--"he lodges, I
think--at one Christie's--if I mistake not--at Paul's Wharf--a ship-
chandler's."
"A proper lodging for a young baron!--Well, but cheer you up, Mistress
Margaret--If he has come up a caterpillar, like some of his
countrymen, he may cast his slough like them, and come out a
butterfly.
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