rl at the base of
every leaf--"dere! You shall not see a better sight in all de
city--_ach_! not in Nuremburg nor Coln. Dat is what you want--it is
_schon, schon_! and dirt sheap it is--only von hundert marks. You take
it?"

The lady seemed inclined to take it, but the gentleman demurred at the
hundred marks--66 pounds, 13 shillings and 4 pence, which, reduced to
modern value, would be nearly eleven hundred pounds; and the girls, who
had lingered as long as they reasonably could in their passage through
the attractive shop, were obliged to pass out while the bargain was
still unconcluded.

"I'd have had that chaplet for myself, if I'd been that lady!" said
Alexandra as they went forward. "I'd never have cast that away for a
christening gift."

"Nay, but her lord would not find the money," answered Ricarda.

"I'd have had it, some way," said her sister. "It was fair enough for a
queen. Amphillis, I do marvel who is the lady thou shalt serve.
There's ever so much ado ere the matter be settled. 'Tis one grander
than Mistress Chaucer, trow, thou shalt see to-morrow even."

"Ay, so it seems," was the quiet answer.

"Nathless, I would not change with thee. I've no such fancy for silence
and patience. Good lack! but if a maid can work, and dress hair, and
the like, what would they of such weary gear as that?"

"Maids be not of much worth without they be discreet," said Amphillis.

"Well, be as discreet as thou wilt; I'll none of it," was the flippant
reply of her cousin.

The young ladies, however, did not neglect to accompany Amphillis on her
subsequent visit. Regina met them at the door.

"She is great lady, dis one, I am sure," said she. "Pray you, mind your
respects."

The great lady carried on her conversation in French, which in 1372 was
the usual language of the English nobles. Its use was a survival from
the Norman Conquest, but the Norman-French was very far from pure, being
derided by the real French, and not seldom by Englishmen themselves.
Chaucer says of his prioress:--

"And French she spake full fair and fetously [cleverly],
After the scole of Stratford-atte-Bow,
For French of Paris was to hire [her] unknow."

This lady, the girls noticed, spoke the French of Paris, and was rather
less intelligible in consequence. She put her queries in a short, quick
style, which a little disconcerted Amphillis; and she had a weary,
irritated manner. At last she said shortly--

"Very well!