_Old Play._
When Mistress Margaret entered the Foljambe apartment, she found the
inmates employed in their usual manner; the lady in reading, and her
attendant in embroidering a large piece of tapestry, which had
occupied her ever since Margaret had been first admitted within these
secluded chambers.
Hermione nodded kindly to her visitor, but did not speak; and
Margaret, accustomed to this reception, and in the present case not
sorry for it, as it gave her an interval to collect her thoughts,
stooped over Monna Paula's frame and observed, in a half whisper, "You
were just so far as that rose, Monna, when I first saw you--see, there
is the mark where I had the bad luck to spoil the flower in trying to
catch the stitch--I was little above fifteen then. These flowers make
me an old woman, Monna Paula."
"I wish they could make you a wise one, my child," answered Monna
Paula, in whose esteem pretty Mistress Margaret did not stand quite so
high as in that of her patroness; partly owing to her natural
austerity, which was something intolerant of youth and gaiety, and
partly to the jealousy with which a favourite domestic regards any one
whom she considers as a sort of rival in the affections of her
mistress.
"What is it you say to Monna, little one?" asked the lady.
"Nothing, madam," replied Mistress Margaret, "but that I have seen the
real flowers blossom three times over since I first saw Monna Paula
working in her canvass garden, and her violets have not budded yet.
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