Kings & rulers > Kenilworth > Volume 1

KENILWORTH.
81
features, which had been sometimes censured for
being rather too pale. The necklace of milk-
white pearls which she wore, the same which she
had just received as a true-love token from her
husband, were excelled in purity by her teeth,
and by the colour of her skin, saving where the
blush of pleasure and self-satisfaction had some¬
what stained the neck with a shade of light crim¬
son.—“Now have done with these busy fingers,
Janet,” she said to her busy hand-maiden, who
was still officiously employed in bringing her hair
and her dress into order—“ Have done, I say—
I must see your father ere my lord arrives, and
also Master Richard Varney, whom my lord has
highly in his esteem—but I could tell that of him
would lose him favour.”
“ O do not do so, good my lady!” replied Ja¬
net ; “ leave him to God, who punishes the wick¬
ed in his own time; but do not you cross Varney’s
path, for so thoroughly hath he my lord’s ear,
that few have thriven who have thwarted his
courses.”
“ And from whom had you this, my most
righteous Janet?” said the Countess j “or why
should I keep terms with so mean a gentleman as
Varney, being, as I am, wife to his master and
patron ?”
“ Nay, madam,” replied Janet Foster, “your
ladyship knows better than I—But I have heard
my father say, he would rather cross a hungry
wolf, than thwart Richard Varney in his projects
—And he has oft charged me to have a care of
holding commerce with him.”
“ Thy father said well, girl, for thee,” replied
the lady, “ and I dare swear meant well. It is a
. pity? though, his face and manner do little match
his true purpose—for I think his purpose may be
true.’’