But the father!--I mind me now that I have heard of his name, through my friend Master Caxton, the mercer, as one of prodigious skill in the mathematics.

I should like much to see him, and, with thy leave (an' he ask me), will tarry to supper.

But what are these ?"--and Nicholas took up one of the illuminated manuscripts which Sibyll had prepared for sale.

"By the blood! this is couthly and marvellously blazoned." The book was still in his hands when Sibyll entered.

Nicholas stared at her, as he bowed with a stiff and ungraceful embarrassment, which often at first did injustice to his bold, clear intellect, and his perfect self-possession in matters of trade or importance.
"The first woman face," muttered Nicholas to himself, "I ever saw that had the sense of a man's.