. The sweets were Barlee and
Mon Amy, of which the first was rice cream, and the second a preparation
of curds and cream.

Amphillis looked with considerable interest along the table, and at her
opposite neighbours. Lady Foljambe she recognised at once; and beside
her sat a younger lady whom she had not seen before. She applied to her
neighbour for information.

"She?" said Agatha. "Oh, she's Mistress Margaret, my Lady's
daughter-in-law; wife to Master Godfrey, that sits o' t' other side of
his mother; and that's Master Matthew, o' this side. The priest's
Father Jordan--a fat old noodle as ever droned a psalm through his nose.
Love you mirth and jollity?"

"I scarce know," said Amphillis, hesitatingly. "I have had so little."

Agatha's face was a sight to see.

"Good lack, but I never reckoned you should be a spoil-sport!" said she,
licking her spoon as in duty bound before she plunged it in the jelly--a
piece of etiquette in which young ladies at that date were carefully
instructed. The idea of setting a separate spoon to help a dish had not
dawned upon the mediaeval mind.

"I shall hate you, I can tell you, if you so are. Things here be like
going to a funeral all day long--never a bit of music nor dancing, nor
aught that is jolly. Mistress Margaret might be eighty, so sad and
sober is she; and as for my Lady and Mistress Perrote, they are just a
pair of old jog-trots fit to run together in a quirle [the open car then
used by ladies, something like a waggonette]. Master Godfrey's all for
arms and fighting, so he's no better. Master Matthew's best of the lot,
but bad's the best when you've a-done. And he hasn't much chance
neither, for if he's seen laughing a bit with one of us, my Lady's
a-down on him as if he'd broke all the Ten Commandments, and whisks him
off ere you can say Jack Robinson; and if she whip you not, you may
thank the saints or your stars, which you have a mind. Oh, 'tis a jolly
house you've come to, that I can tell you! I hoped you'd a bit more fun
in you than Clarice--she wasn't a scrap of good. But I'm afraid you're
no better."

"I don't know, really," said Amphillis, feeling rather bewildered by
Agatha's reckless rattle, and remembering the injunction not to make a
friend of her. "I suppose I have come here to do my duty; but I know
not yet what it shall be."

"I detest doing my duty!" said Agatha, energetically.

"That's a pity, isn't it?" was the reply.

Agatha laugh