It augured well for her good sense that she could recognise the
absurdity when it was pointed out to her.

Coming down the ladder, they found Anania seated below.

"Well, girls! did you see the Queen?"

"Oh, we had a charming view of her," said Flemild.

"Folks say she's not so charming, seen a bit nearer. You know Veka, the
wife of Chembel? She told me she'd heard Dame Ediva de Gathacra say the
Queen's a perfect fury when she has her back up. Some of the scenes
that are to be seen by nows and thens in Westminster Palace are enough
to set your hair on end. And her extravagance! Will you believe it,
Dame Ediva said, this last year she gave over twenty pounds for one
robe. How many gowns would that buy you and me, Aunt Isel?"

At the present value of money, Her Majesty's robe cost rather more than
500.

"Bless you, I don't know," was Isel's answer. "Might be worth cracking
my head over, if I were to have one of 'em when I'd done. But there's
poor chance of that, I reckon; so I'll let it be."

"They say she sings superbly," said Flemild.

"Oh, very like. Folks may well sing that can afford to give twenty
pound for a gown. If she'd her living to earn, and couldn't put a bit
of bread in her mouth, nor in her children's, till she'd worked for it,
she'd sing o' t'other side her mouth, most likely."

"Anania, don't talk so unseemly. I'm sure you've a good enough place."

"Oh, are you? I dress in samite, like the Queen, don't I?--and eat
sturgeon and peacocks to my dinner?--and drive of a gilt char when I
come to see folks? I should just like to know why she must have all the
good things in life, and I must put up with the hard ones? I'm as good
a woman as she is, I'm sure of that."

"Cousin Anania," said Derette in a scandalised tone, "you should not
tell us you're a good woman; you should wait till we tell you."

"Then why didn't you tell me?" snapped Anania.

"_I_ didn't tell you so because I don't think so," replied Derette with
severity, "if you say such things of the Queen."

"Much anybody cares what you think, child. Why, just look!--tuns and
tuns of Gascon wine are sent to Woodstock for her: and here must I make
shift with small ale and thin mead that's half sour. She's only to ask
and have."

"Well, I don't know," said Isel. "I wouldn't give my quiet home for a
sup of Gascon wine--more by reason I don't like it. `Scenes at
Westminster Palace' are not things I covet. My poor Manning wa