Oh how happy we shall be--how wondrously happy! "Father dear, it was Lady Scrope who gave me the wonderful gift that has brought us all this.

We must try to thank her ere we think of ourselves more." So speaking Gertrude turned, with her eyes full of happy tears, towards Lady Scrope, who stood only a few paces off watching everything with her accustomed intense scrutiny, and held out both her hands in a sweet and simple gesture expressive of so much feeling that the old dame felt an unwonted mist rising in her eyes.
"Tut, tut, tut, child! I want no thanks.

What good did the gold do me, thinkest thou, shut away in yonder box?
What think you I had preserved it there for?
Marry that I might fling it away at dice or cards with those who came to visit me?
It was my pleasure money, as I chose to call it.

And then came the plague and smote hip and thigh amongst those who called me friend.

And what good did the gold do me or any person else?
If it pleases me to throw it away on a pair of fools, whose business is that but mine?
"There, there, there, that will do, all of you good people.