command of Fashion; and who does not know that
Fashion, whether in the thirteenth century or the nineteenth, _must_ be
obeyed?

Clarice was on the brink of high promotion. By means of a ladder of
several steps--a Dame requesting a Baroness, and the Baroness entreating
a Countess--the royal lady had been reached at last, whose husband was
the suzerain of Sir Gilbert. It made little difference to this lady
whether her bower-women were two or ten, provided that the attendance
given her was as much as she required; and she readily granted the
petition that Clarice La Theyn might be numbered among those young
ladies. The Earl of Cornwall was the richest man in England, not
excepting the King. It may be added that, at this period, Earl was the
highest title known short of the Prince of Wales. The first Duke had
not yet been created, while Marquis is a rank of much later date.

Dame La Theyn, though she had some good points, had also one grand
failing. She was an inveterate gossip. And it made no difference to
her who was her listener, provided a listener could be had. A spicy
dish of scandal was her highest delight. She had not the least wish nor
intention of doing harm to the person whom she thus discussed. She had
not even the slightest notion that she did any. But her bower-maidens
knew perfectly well that, if one of them wanted to put the dame in high
good-humour before extracting a favour, the best way to do so was to
inform her that Mrs Sheppey had had words with her goodman, or that
Dame Rouse considered Joan Stick i' th' Lane [Note 1], no better than
she should be.

An innocent request from Clarice, that she might know something about
her future mistress, had been to Dame La Theyn a delightful opportunity
for a good dish of gossip. Reticence was not in the Dame's nature; and
in the thirteenth century--and much later than that--facts which in the
nineteenth would be left in concealment, or, at most, only delicately
hinted at, were spoken out in the plainest English, even to young girls.
The fancy that the Countess of Cornwall might not like her whole life,
so far as it was known, laid bare to her new bower-woman was one which
never troubled the mind of Dame La Theyn. Privacy, to any person of
rank more especially, was an unknown thing in the Middle Ages.

"Thou must know, Clarice," began the Dame, "that of old time, before
thou wert born, I was bower-maiden unto my most dear-worthy Lady of
Lincoln--th