t till, an half-hour after, as we were
doffing us for bed, she came, with her important face which she was wont
to wear when some eventful thing had befallen her or us.

"Are the damsels abed, Emelina?" saith she.

"The babes be, Dame; and the elders be a-doffing them."

Dame Hilda came forward into the night nursery.

"Hold you there, young ladies!" saith she: "at the least, I would say my
three elder young ladies--Dame Margaret, Dame Joan, and Dame Isabel.
Pray you, don you once more, but of your warmest gear, for a journey by
night."

"Are we not to go to bed?" asked Joan in surprise: but our three sisters
donned themselves anew, as Dame Hilda had said, of their warmest gear.
Dame Hilda spake not word till they were all ready. Then Meg saith--

"Whither be we bound, Dame?--and with whom?"

"With my Lady, Dame Margaret, to Southampton."

I think we all cried out "Southampton!" in diverse tones.

"There is news come to her Ladyship, as she herself may tell you," said
Dame Hilda, mysteriously.

"Aren't we to go, Dame?" saith Blanche's little voice.

Dame Hilda turned round sharply, as if she went about to snap Blanche's
head off; and Blanche shrank in dismay.

"Certainly not, Dame Blanche! What should my Lady do to be worried with
babes like you? She has enough else on her mind at this present,
without a pack of tiresome children--holy saints be her help! Eh dear,
dear, this world!"

"Dame, is this world so bad?" saith Jack, letting his nose appear above
the bed-clothes.

"Go to sleep, the weary lot of you!" was Dame Hilda's irritable answer.

"Because," saith Jack, ne'er a whit daunted--nothing ever cowed
Jack--"if it is so bad, hadn't you better be off out of it? You'd be
better off, I suppose, and we shouldn't miss you,--that I'll promise.
Do go, Dame!"

Jack spake these last words with a full compassionate air, as though he
were seriously concerned for Dame Hilda's happiness; but she, marching
up to the bed where Jack lay, dealt him a stinging slap for his
impudence.

"Ah!" saith Jack in a mumbled voice, having disappeared under the
bed-clothes, "this is a bad world, I warrant you, where folks return
evil for good o' this fashion!"

We heard no more of Jack beyond divers awesome snores, which I think
were not altogether sooth-fast: but before many minutes had passed, the
door of the antechamber opened, and my Lady, donned in travelling gear,
entered the nursery.

Dame Hilda's words had