"Pretty women, Nephew, no wonder that you look at them," he said when
they had gone away to fetch other things, "such as I like to have about
me although I am old. Women for within and men for without, that is
Nature's law, and ill will be the day when it is changed. Yet beware of
pretty women, Nephew, and I pray you kiss not those as you did the lady
Blanche Aleys at Hastings, lest it should upset my household and turn
servants into mistresses."
I made no answer, being confounded by the knowledge that my uncle showed
of me and my affairs, which afterwards I discovered he had, in part at
any rate, from the old priest, my confessor, who had written to
commend me to him, telling my story and sending the letter by a King's
messenger, who left for London on the morrow of the Burning. Nor did he
wait for any, for he bade me sit down and eat, plying me with more meats
than I could swallow, all most delicately dressed, also with rare wines
such as I had never tasted, which he took from a cupboard where they
were kept in curious flasks of glass. Yet as I noted, himself he ate but
little, only picking at the breast of a fowl and drinking but the half
of a small silver goblet filled with wine.
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