smuch as he could never bring himself to play the lord
over his wife; albeit he was in other matters a strict and thorough man;
nay a right stern master, who ruled the host of foresters and hewers,
warders and beaters, bee-keepers and woodmen who were under him with
prudence and straitness. And yet my aunt Jacoba was a feeble, sickly
woman, who rarely went forth to drink in God's fresh air in the lordly
forest, having lost the use of her feet, so that she must be borne from
her couch to her bed.

My uncle knew her full well, and he knew that she had a good and pitiful
heart and was minded to do good to her kind; nevertheless he said his
power over her would not stretch to the point of making her take a
scrivener's child into her noble house, and entertaining her as an
equal. Thus he withstood my fondest prayers, till he granted so much as
that Ann should come and speak for herself or ever he should leave the
house.

When she had hastily greeted my cousin and me, and Cousin Maud had told
her who my uncle was, she went up to him in her decent way, made him a
curtsey, and held out her hand, no whit abashed, while her great eyes
looked up at him lovingly, inasmuch as she had heard all that was good
of him from me.

Thereupon I saw in the old forester's face that he was "on the scent"
of my Ann--to use his own words--so I took heart again and said: "Well,
little uncle?"

"Well," said he slowly and doubtingly. But he presently uplifted Ann's
chin, gazed her in the face, and said: "To be sure, to be sure! Peaches
get they red cheeks better where we dwell than here among stone walls."
And he pulled down his belt and went on quickly, as though he weened
that he might have to rue his hasty words: "Margery is to be our welcome
guest out in the forest; and if she should bring thee with her, child,
thou'lt be welcome."

Nor need I here set down how gladly the bidding was received; and Ann's
parents were more than content to let her go. Thenceforth had Cousin
Maud, and our house maids, and Beata the tailor-wife, enough on their
hands; for they deemed it a pleasure to take care to outfit Ann as
well as me, since there were many noble guests at the forest lodge,
especially about St. Hubert's day, when there was ever a grand hunt.

Dame Giovanna, Ann's mother, was in truth at all times choicely clad,
and she ever kept Ann in more seemly and richer habit than others of her
standing; yet she was greatly content with the summer holi