ers would all but kiss too.

_Lord Humphrey._--Ha! ha! Nurse, thy fingers would be but ill satisfied
lovers under those conditions nowadays. Eh, Dolly?

_Lady Dorothy._--Hold thy tongue for an unmannerly lad, Humphrey. Do not
thou heed him, nurse, but go on with thy story.

_Nurse Crumpet._--For all thy laughter, my lord, I'd a waist my garter
would bind in those days, and was as light on my toes as those flames
that dance i' th' chimney. Lord! Lord! how well I mind me o' th' first
time that e'er I clapt eyes on Jock Crumpet! I was speeding home with a
jug o' water from the spring, and what with his staring as he stood at
the road-side to let me pass, and what with a root i' th' way, I all but
lost my footing. Yet did I swing round alone, holding fast my jug, and
ne'er one blessed drop o' water spilled I, for all my tripping. "By'r
lay'kin!" quoth he, "thou'rt as light on thy feet as a May wind, and as
I live I will dance the Barley Break with thee this harvesting or I will
dance with none!" And i' faith a was as good as his word, for by hook or
by crook, and much scheming and planning, and bringing o' gewgaws to my
mother, and a present o' a fine yearling to my father, that harvesting
did I dance the Barley Break with Jock Crumpet. And a was a feather-man
in a round reel.

Well, 'twas the year o' my meeting with Jock, thou mindst. (And a cold
winter that was--Christ save us! There be ne'er such winters nowadays.
This night is as a summer noon i' th' comparison.) 'Twas the year o' my
first meeting with Jock, and my lady, your grandmother, sent for me to
the castle, to be her waiting-maid. Lord! 'twas a troublous time! What
with joy at my good fortune, and sorrow at quitting my mother, I was
fain to smile with one corner o' my mouth and look grievously with the
other, like a zany at a village fair. And Jock, he would not that I
went, for that he could not see me, or consort wi' me so often: Jock was
aye honey-combed wi' th' thing ye call "sentiment." A would grin on a
flower I had wov'n in my locks by th' hour together. And 'tis my belief
a could a spun him a warm doublet out o' the odds and ends o' ribbon and
what not he had filched from me when my eyes were elsewhere. And
Jock--but 'tis neither here nor there o' Jock. In those days thy
grandmother had only one child, a little lass, the Lady Patience. And
ne'er was man or maid worse named; for to call such a flibbertigibbet
"Patience" were as though one should name a