tted the room.

"Why, Cicely!" exclaimed Dame Lovell, turning round from the pottage,
"had I wist thou hadst put no saffron herein, thou shouldst have had
mine hand about thine ears, lass! Bring the saffron presently! No
saffron, quotha!"

Before we accompany Margery and Richard to hear the homily of Master
Sastre, it might perhaps be as well to prevent any misunderstanding on
the part of the reader with respect to Richard Pynson. He is the page
of Sir Geoffrey Lovell, and the son of Sir John Pynson of Pynsonlee; for
in the year 1395, wherein our story opens, it is the custom for young
gentlemen, even the sons of peers, to be educated as page or squire to
some neighbouring knight of wealth and respectability. Richard Pynson,
therefore, though he may seem to occupy a subordinate position, is in
every respect the equal of Margery.

The morning on which Master Sastre was to deliver his homily was one of
those delicious spring days which seem the immediate harbingers of
summer. Margery, in her black dress, and with a warm hood over her
cote-hardie, was assisted by her father to mount her pillion, Richard
Pynson being already seated before her on the grey palfrey; for in the
days of pillions, if the gentleman assisted the lady on her pillion
_before_ he mounted himself, he ran imminent risk of knocking her off
when he should attempt to mount. They rode leisurely to church, the
distance being about two miles, and a little foot-page ran beside them
charged with the care of the palfrey, while they attended the service.
Mass was performed by the parish priest, but the scholar from Oxford,
who sat in the sedilia, where Margery could scarcely see him, took no
part in the service beyond reading the Gospel.

The sermons of that day, as a rule, may be spoken of in two classes.
Either the preacher would read a passage of Scripture in Latin, and
throw in here and there a few remarks by way of commentary, or else the
sermon was a long and dry disquisition upon some of the (frequently very
absurd) dogmas of the schoolmen; such as, whether angels were synonymous
with spirits, which of the seven principal angels was the chief, how
long it took Gabriel to fly from heaven to earth at the Annunciation, at
what time of day he appeared, how he was dressed, etcetera, Sastre's
discourse could not be comprised in either of these classes. He read
his text first, as usual, in Latin, but then he said:

"And now, brethren and sistren, to d