his ready submission to the authority exercised by the master of
the house upon all beneath his roof, and the absence of anything
like presumption or superciliousness on his nephew's part on the
score of his patrician birth on his father's side. Trevlyn though
he was, the lad conformed to all the ways and usages of the humbler
Holts; and even Mistress Susan soon ceased to look sourly at him,
for she found him as amenable to her authority as to that of
Martin, and handy and helpful in a thousand little nameless ways.

He was immensely interested in everything about him. He would as
willingly sit and baste a capon on the spit as ramble abroad in the
streets, if she would but answer his host of inquiries about
London, its ways and its sights. Mistress Susan was not above being
open to the insidious flattery of being questioned and listened to;
and to find herself regarded as an oracle of wisdom and a mine of
information could not but be soothing to her vanity, little as she
knew that she possessed her share of that common feminine failing.

Then Cuthbert was a warm appreciator of her culinary talents. The
poor boy, who had lived at the Gate House on the scantiest of
commons, and had been kept to oaten bread and water sometimes for a
week together for a trifling offence, felt indeed that he had come
to a land of plenty when he sat down day after day to his uncle's
well-spread table, and was urged to partake of all manner of
dishes, the very name of which was unknown to him. His keen relish
of her dainties, combined with what seemed to her a very modest
consumption of them, pleased Mistress Susan not a little; whilst
for his own part Cuthbert began to look heartier and stronger than
he had ever done before. The slimness of attenuation was merged in
that of wiry strength and muscle. His dark eyes no longer looked