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 your lord and mine; for Heaven, as holy writ saith, hath given the husband supremacy and dominion over the wife—I think it runs so, or something like it.”

“I receive at this moment so pleasant a surprise, Master Foster,” answered the Countess, “that I cannot but excuse the rigid fidelity which secluded me from these apartments, until they had assumed an appearance so new and so splendid.”

“Ay, lady,” said Foster, “it hath cost many a fair crown; and that more need not be wasted than is absolutely necessary, I leave you till my lord’s arrival with good Master Richard Varney, who, as I think, hath somewhat to say to you from your most noble lord and husband.—Janet, follow me, to see that all be in order.”

“No, Master Foster,” said the Countess, “we will your daughter remains here in our apartment; out of ear-shot, however, in case Varney hath aught to say to me from my lord.”

Foster made his clumsy reverence, and departed, with an aspect that seemed to grudge the profuse expense, which had been wasted upon changing his house from a bare and ruinous grange to an Asiatic palace. When he was gone, his daughter took her embroidery frame, and went to establish herself at the bottom of the apartment, while Richard Varney, with a profoundly humble courtesy, took the lowest stool he could find, and placing it by the side of the pile of cushions on which the Countess had now again seated herself, sat with his eyes for a time fixed on the ground, and in profound silence.