'Tis a poor lie.

_I_ am a woman and I do not suffer--for I _will_ not, that I swear! And when I take an oath I keep it, mark you! It is men women suffer for; that was what your scholar meant--for such fine gentlemen as the one you have just watched while he rode away.

More fools they! No man shall make _me_ womanly in such a fashion, I promise you! Let _them_ wince and kneel; _I_ will not." "Sister," Anne faltered, "I thought you were not within.

The gentleman who rode away--did the servants know ?" "That did they," quoth Clorinda, mocking again.

"They knew that I would not receive him to-day, and so sent him away.