to do. Neverthelatter, there
be times when it should do me ease to take him by the shoulders and give
him an hearty shake, if I could thereby shake a bit more sense into him:
and there be times when it comes over me that he might have been better
matched, as our sometime Lord King Edward meant him to have been, with
the Lady Alianora La Despenser, that Queen Isabel packed off to a
nunnery in hot haste when she came in. Poor soul! He certainly is not
matched with me, unless two horses be matched whereof one is black and
of sixteen handfuls, and steppeth like a prince, and the other is white,
and of twelve handfuls, and ambles of a jog-trot. I would he had a bit
more stir in him. Not that he lacks knightly courage--never a whit;
carry him into battle, and he shall quit him like a man; but when all is
said, he is fitter for the cloister, for he loveth better to sit at home
with Joan of his knee, and a great clerkly book afore him wherein he
will read by the hour, which is full well for a priest, but not for a
noble of the King's Court. He never gave me an ill word (veriliest
[truly], I marvel if ever he said `I won't!' in all his life), yet, for
all his hendihood [courtesy, sweetness], will he have his own way by
times, I can never make out how. But he is a good man on the whole, and
doth pretty well as he is bid, and I might change for a worse without
taking a long journey. So, take it all in all, there are many women
have more to trouble them than I, the blessed saints be thanked, and our
sweetest Lady Saint Mary and my patron Saint Agnes in especial. Only I
do hope Jack shall have more wit than his father, and I shall think the
fairies have changed him if he have not. _My_ son should not be short
of brains.

But now, to have back, and begin my story: for I reckon I shall never
make an end if I am thus lone: in coming to the beginning.

We were all brought up in the Castle of Ludlow, going now and then to
sweeten [to have the house thoroughly cleaned] to the Castle of Wigmore.
Of course, while we were little children, we knew scarce any thing of
our parents, as beseemed persons of our rank. The people whom I verily
knew were Dame Hilda our mistress [governess], and Maud and Ellen our
damsels, and Master Terrico our Chamberlain, and Robert atte Wardrobe,
our wardrobe-keeper, and Sir Philip the clerk (I cry him mercy, he
should have had place of Robert), and Stephen the usher of the chamber,
and our four nurses