er--and hard work it had been--and then cometh this Abbot of
Darley, and slams the door afore I may go through. Well, the Lord can
open others, an' He will. `He openeth, and none shutteth; He shutteth,
and none openeth;' and blessed be His holy Name, He is easilier come at
a deal than men. If I must tarry, it is to tarry His leisure; and He
knows both the hearts of men, and the coming future; and He is secure
not to be too late. He loves our poor Lady better than I love her, and
I love her well-nigh as mine own soul. Lord, help me to wait Thy time,
and help mine unbelief!"

The ordeal of telling Lady Foljambe had to be gone through the next
morning. She was even more angry than Perrote had anticipated, and much
more than Amphillis expected. Ricarda was a good-for-nought, a hussy, a
wicked wretch, and a near relative of Satan, while Amphillis was only a
shade lighter in the blackness of her guilt. In vain poor Amphillis
pleaded that she had never guessed Lady Foljambe's intention of sending
for her cousin, and had never heard of it until she saw her. Then, said
Lady Foljambe, unreasonable in her anger, she ought to have guessed it.
But it was all nonsense! Of course she knew, and had plotted it all
with her cousins.

"Nay, Dame," said Perrote; "I myself heard you to say, the even afore
Ricarda came, that it should give Phyllis a surprise to see her."

If anything could have made Lady Foljambe more angry than she was, it
was having it shown to her that she was in the wrong. She now turned
her artillery upon Perrote, whom she scolded in the intervals of heaping
unsavoury epithets upon Amphillis and Ricarda, until Amphillis thought
that everything poor Perrote had ever done in her life to Lady
Foljambe's annoyance, rightly or wrongly, must have been dragged out of
an inexhaustible memory to lay before her. At last it came to an end.
Ricarda was dismissed in dire disgrace; all that Lady Foljambe would
grant her was her expenses home, and the escort of one mounted servant
to take her there. Even this was given only at the earnest pleading of
Perrote and Amphillis, who knew, as indeed did Lady Foljambe herself,
that to turn a girl out of doors in this summary manner was to expose
her to frightful dangers in the fourteenth century. Poor Ricarda was
quite broken down, and so far forgot her threats as to come to Amphillis
for help and comfort. Amphillis gave her every farthing in her purse,
and desired the servan