And, indeed, it was little wonder, for she was as
fair and sweet a damsel as ever tripped over the greensward. Our little
Lady would run to her whenever she sat down in the children's chamber,
and say, `Up! up!' and then the Lady Alianora would smile sweetly, and
take her up beside her in the great state chair; and there they sat with
their arms round one another, looking like two doves with their heads
resting on each other's necks. And the Lady Alianora once said to me,
stroking our little Lady's hair--`I hope, Avice, thou givest her plenty
of love. She can understand that, if she cannot anything else.' Ay,
and so she could! She fretted sadly over the Lady Alianora when she
went away from Windsor. I think she and the little kid were more than
ever together after that. I have found them both asleep in a corner of
the chamber, resting on one another."

"Was she fond of pets?"

"She loved her little kid dearly, and she seemed to go to it for
comfort. I do not know that she cared much for anything else. The Lord
King was the one for gathering curious animals of all sorts. He had
three leopards in the Tower, and a white bear, which was taken out to
fish in the Thames; the citizens of London paid fourpence a day for the
bear's keep, and had to provide a chain and muzzle for it, and a long
cord whereby it was held when it fished in the river. And in the
spring, before the coming of the Lady Alianora, the French King sent to
our King a very strange animal, the like of which was never before seen
in England. It had scarcely any eyes that man might see, and not much
of a tail; but great flapping ears, and a most extraordinary thing that
hung down from its face, which was hollow like a pipe, and it could pick
things up with it as thou dost with thy fingers. It was a lead-coloured
beast, and ate nought but grass and hay and such-like; it would not
touch meat nor bones. They called it an oliphant,"--for so in old time
people pronounced elephant. "The Lord King thought great things of this
beast, and had a house built for it, forty feet by twenty, at the Tower:
it was made very strong, lest the great beast should break forth and
slay men. But truly it seemed a peaceable beast enough.

"We dwelt much more quietly at Windsor, after the departure of the Lady
Alianora. For she went abroad with the Lord Edward her husband, and
Mariot de Ferrars, who had been there for some time--she went too; and
the King's son Edmun