Meanwhile Mr. Wells asked Mr. Congleton if he had had news from the north, where much blood was spilt since the rising; and he apprehended that his kinsmen in Richmondshire should suffer under the last orders sent to Sir George Bowes by my Lord Sussex. But Mr. Congleton did minister to him this comfort, that if they were noted wealthy, and had freeholds, it was the queen's special commandment they should not be executed, but two hundred of the commoner sort to lose their lives in each town; which was about one to each five.
"None which can pay the worth of their heads," Mr. Congleton replied.
"And who, then, doth price them?" asked Kate, in a languishing voice.
"Nay, sister," quoth Polly, "I warrant thee they do price themselves; for he that will not pay well for his head must needs opine he hath a worthless one."
Upon which Mr. Lacy said to Kate, "One hundred angels would not pay for thine, sweet Kate."
"Then she must needs be an archangel, sir," quoth Polly, "if she be of greater worth than one hundred angels."
"Ah, me!" cried Kate, very earnestly, "I would I had but half one hundred gold-pieces to buy me a gown with!"
"Hast thou not gowns enough, wench?" asked her father. "Methought thou wert indifferently well provided in that respect."
"Ah, but I would have, sir, such a velvet suit as I did see some weeks back at the Italian house in Cheapside, where the ladies of the court do buy their vestures. It had a border the daintiest I ever beheld, all powdered with gold and pearls. Ruffiano said it was the rarest suit he had ever made; and he is the Queen of France's tailor, which Sir Nicholas Throgmorton did secretly entice away, by the queen's desire, from that court to her own."
"And what fair nymph owns this rare suit, sweetest Kate?" Mr. Lacy asked. "I'll warrant none so fair that it should become her, or rather that she should become it, more than her who doth covet it."
"I know not if she be fair or foul," quoth Kate, "but she is the Lady Mary Howard, one of the maids of honor of her majesty, and so may wear what pleaseth her."
"By that token of the gold and pearls," cried Mr. Wells, "I doubt not but 'tis the very suit anent which the court have been wagging their tongues for the last week; and if it be so, indeed, Mistress Kate, you have no need to envy the poor lady that doth own it."