The embarrassment that ensued--on her part only, for the pale and gentle face of her friend betrayed not even so much as surprise--was due to several causes. Judith could neither read nor write. In her earlier years she had been a somewhat delicate child, and had consequently been excused from the ordinary tuition, slight as that usually was in the case of girls; but when, later on, she grew into quite firm and robust health, in her wilfulness and pride and petulance she refused to retransform herself into a child and submit to be taught children's lessons. Moreover, she had an acute and alert brain; and she had a hundred reasons ready to show that what was in reality a mere waywardness on her part was the most wise and natural thing in the world; while her father, who had a habitual and great tolerance for everything and everybody that came within his reach, laughed with her rather than at her, and said she should do very well without book-learning so long as those pink roses shone in her cheeks. But she had one reason that was not merely an excuse. Most of the printed matter that reached the house was brought thither by this or that curate, or by this or that famous preacher, who, in going through the country, was sure of an eager and respectful welcome at New Place; and perhaps it was not kindly nor civilly done of them--though it may have been regarded as a matter of conscience--that they should carry thither and read aloud, among other things, the fierce denunciations of stage-plays and stage-players which were common in the polemical and puritanical literature of the day. Right or wrong, Judith resented this with a vehement indignation; and she put a ban upon all books, judging by what she had heard read out of some; nay, one day she had come into the house and found her elder sister, who was not then married, greatly distressed, and even in the bitterness of tears; and when she discovered that the cause of this was a pamphlet that had been given to Susanna, in which not only were the heinous wickednesses of plays and players denounced, but also her own father named by his proper name, Judith, with hot cheeks and flashing eyes, snatched the pamphlet from her sister's hand and forthwith sent it flying through the open window into the mud without, notwithstanding that books and pamphlets were scarce and valuable things, and that this one had been lent. And when she discovered that this piece of writing had been brought to the house by the pious and learned Walter Blaise--a youthful divine he was who had a small living some few miles from Stratford, but who dwelt in the town, and was one of the most eager and disputatious of the Puritanical preachers there--it in no way mitigated her wrath that this worthy Master Blaise was regarded by many, and even openly spoken of, as a suitor for her own hand.