"

"I cry you mercy, Hostess, for troubling of you; but Master and me,
we're bidden to lie at the mill. Mistress Ewring's been that good; but
there's no room for Rose, and--"

"Then Rose can turn in with Dorothy, and I'm fain on't if she'll give
her a bit of her earnestness for pay. There's not as much lead to her
heels in a twelvemonth as would last Doll a week.--So this is what thou
calls a brown hood, is it? I call it a blue apron. Gramercy, the
stupidness o' some folks!"

"Please you, Mistress, there was nought but that in the coffer."

"What coffer?"

"The walnut, in the porch-chamber."

"Well, if ever I did! I never spake a word of the walnut coffer, nor
the porch-chamber neither, I told thee the great oak coffer, and that's
in my chamber, as thou knows, as well as thou knows thy name's Dorothy.
Put that apron back where thou found it, and bring me the brown hood
from the oak coffer. Dear heart, but she'll go and cast her eyes about
for an oak hood in a brown coffer, as like as not! She's that heedless.
It's not for lack of wit; she could if she would.--Why, what's to be
done with yon little scraps! You can never get home to Thorpe such a
night as this. Johnson! you leave these bits o' children with me, and
I'll send them back to you to-morrow when the cart goes your way for a
load of malt. There's room enough for you; you'd all pack in a thimble,
well-nigh.--Nay, now! hast thou really found it? Now then, Agnes Love,
cast that over you, and hap it close to keep you warm. Pay! bless the
woman, I want no pay! only some day I'd like to hear `Inasmuch' said to
me. Good even!"

"You'll hear that, Mistress Wade!" said Agnes Love, a pale quiet-looking
woman, with a warm grasp of Mistress Wade's hand. "You'll hear that,
and something else, belike--as we've heard to-night, the King will come
forth and serve you. Eh, but it warms one's heart to hear tell of it!"

"Ay, it doth, dear heart, it doth! Good-night, and God bless thee!
Now, Master Pulleyne, I'll show you your chamber, an' it like you. Rose
Allen, you know the way to Dorothy's loft? Well, go you up, and take
the little ones with you. It's time for babes like them to be abed.
Doll will show you how to make up a bed for them. Art waiting for some
one, Bessy?"

"No, Mistress Wade," said Elizabeth Foulkes, who had stood quietly in a
corner as though she were; "but if you'd kindly allow it, I'd fain go up
too and have a chat with Rose. My